Returning Home
by Adira Tyree
Summary: Calista has spent the first 18 years of her life as a rebellious yet loyal daughter of Joshua Graham at Dead Horse Point. Though she loves her people she was raised as a Wastelander, and has always felt a disconnect between herself and the Dead Horses. When her father gives her a letter on her 18th birthday, her life is turned upside-down, and she sets off to find the Legion.
1. PART 1: Chapter 1 - The Letter

_Calista,_

_I do not know if my name will mean anything to you in the years to come. It is my hope though that our war will not become forgotten so quickly, and that we shall be victorious. I am leader of the Frumentarii in Caesar's Legion, and one of his most trusted men._

_My skills have never gone unnoticed by mighty Caesar. He has said that the urge to fight and seek victory by any means necessary is in my blood. That is why he sought to use me for the creation of many more of his soldiers. I was hesitant at first, but I will always be true to Caesar, and it was his command._

_There was nothing at could have prepared me for a daughter. It was something I hadn't thought of, an oversight. I am not sure what I will do if it happens again._

_Caesar had been instructing me with my newest orders, to go to Zion and report back on the status of the tribes, when your mother went into labor. He said that I should stay for the birth, and then carry out my mission after naming my child. The honor of naming a child with a Latin name at birth was too great to resist, and so I stayed. _

_Girl children are of little use to us in the camp. They only inspire trouble, and our women do not have time to teach girls the ways of the world. It seems cruel that they are disposed of, but after your birth I realized that it is a far kinder fate than keeping them here. I hope you will understand this._

_I was the one to deliver you, held you as you squirmed your way into this world. I had never seen such a young child before, a newborn; not even an infant. You were tiny. Something about your infinite smallness changed me that day. The way you stared into my eyes, not wailing or screaming like children do, but with strength I could not have anticipated, reminded me of something that the Legion had never understood or accepted: women are born with strength too._

_This was why I offered to be the one to dispose of you. It reaffirmed in Caesar's eyes my loyalty to his cause; he agreed. After spending only hours in your mother's arms, I took you from her. I could not tell her that I wanted to save you; it would have made me look weak, which could not be afforded. Her cries have chilled my cold heart like no other._

_I packed my things, leaving just enough room to keep you in my bag. A harsh way to carry such a delicate thing, but practical. You slept as I drew the drawstring shut and slung it over my shoulder._

_I was torn between my personal feelings and my orders. When I reached the cliff I had settled on to cast you off to death, I stared at it for a long time, and at you for even longer. Your lazy eyes opened, and you did not cry. You were strong. You were of my own blood._

_I used your blanket to tie you close to my chest, and walked away._

_I can never leave Caesar's Legion; it is the way that I am and have lived for many years. Nothing will change that. But this one time I will disobey._

_Someday I should like to see you, to know what life you have chosen. Whatever becomes of you, I know you will be strong. This world requires strength to survive, and you were born filled with it._

_With this letter, I leave you a necklace. It is the Mark of Caesar: a rare gift that will allow you to pass freely through Legion encampments. If you ever wish to meet me, bring it to Fortification Hill and present it at the gates, and ask for me by name. Do not say who you are, if asked, only that you are expected._

_This is the most I can do for you. I hope it will be enough._

_Your father,_

_Vulpes Inculta_

* * *

A/N: Also, just going to confirm that: yes, I am posting simultaneously now to both FF & AO3. Putting this on all three accounts so no one has a kerfuffle over it.


	2. Chapter 2 - Questions

Calista looked down at the letter, eyes widening with every word. Reaching the end, she flipped it over to see if there was more, something to explain why this was being dumped on her so suddenly, but all she found was a faded advertisement: a torn off section of a poster for Nuka Cola. The light from the fire flickered on the walls of the cave, casting an eerie red glow around the room.

"All my life, you never thought to mention this once?" she asked bitterly, staring at the worn, red paper. "Not once?"

The Burned Man was slow to answer, his eyes gazing at the Mark of Caesar that lay on the old picnic table beside her. "I thought often of it. But I made a promise, and in the end even my grudges should not lead me to lie." The bench groaned as he shifted his weight.

"You knew I never felt right here though. That I didn't fit in somehow." She was shaking, unable to control her own hands as the clenched into fists. All her life she had been the girl with no parents. No birth mother and an unknown father that wouldn't keep her. "I didn't think you even knew who my parents were!" she said, standing. She slammed the letter down onto the table. "And all this time you knew where I came from? Where my family was? Where I belonged?"

"I know your father," Joshua said, "but nothing more." The infinite patience in his voice made Calista's blood boil. "I knew that when I told you, you would leave. I wanted you to be prepared for what you would find there before blindly wandering the Mojave. 'Civilization' is not all that the word implies. We have peace here."

"Well you could have mentioned something! Anything! At least that I had parents somewhere out there, even if they weren't ideal." Her words felt understated, given that this Vulpes was one of the highest ranking officers in the Legion. The same Legion whose _psychopath_ leader had burned Joshua alive and thrown him into the canyon to die. She had heard countless whispered stories about the Legion, but had never imagined that she was connected to it just as much as Joshua. Zion saw little of the Legion after the battles of Hoover Dam, but Joshua was an inescapable memento of that past.

"The ways of the Lord are strange and unpredictable; it is the most I can do to trust that, in the end, all will go as He has planned," Joshua said, looking into the fire. It sparked in his eyes as though it were the moth and he the flame.

"Oh cut the shit already," Calista said, her voice icy with bitterness. "You know I don't believe in this god of yours."

He sighed quietly. "I am sorry. I know this hurts you," said Joshua, but he offered nothing more on it. His eyes held no emotion as he spoke. It only made Calista angrier. "If you wish to seek out your father, I won't stop you. You're a grown woman now; I cannot hold your hand forever." He held out the Mark to her, its chain hanging on a single, dark finger. "I have not read your letter, as it was not intended for me, but I know this Mark. The fact that he gave it to you means he wants you to find him. It will keep you safe when you reach them, but travel carefully. Few citizens of the Mojave have forgotten the brutality of the war."

Calista took the necklace, carefully lifting it from Joshua's bandaged hand. The wrappings were grey and stained with grease, and an absent part of her mind noted that she should help him change them later. She couldn't quite make out the lettering on its surface in the dim, evening light, but the figure of the bull stood out prominently, the symbol of the Legion. It's head was raised in pride, horns forward, frozen mid-stride with its tail raised over its back. It was an odd thing to see; the only similar creatures she had heard of were brahmin, and they, quite distinctly, had two heads.

She had never left Zion. It hadn't exactly been something she'd ever wanted to do, either, but neither had she felt that the remnants of the pre-war world should be taboo. Everyone at Dead Horse Point had always told her that the old buildings were haunted by evil spirits, and that she should stay away. Still, she was raised by Joshua, not just the Dead Horses. She was sure she'd spent at least half of her childhood running in and out of such places, sometimes just to tease them about it. It was all a load of shit to her; there was nothing wrong with the buildings. Someone had just, long ago, been unlucky enough to discover a ghoul in one and thought the spirits were punishing them.

Her mind wrestled her options back and forth, not hearing the soft words Joshua used to try to comfort her. If she left Zion she didn't know when, if ever, she might return home. The thought of traveling the world, however broken it was, appealed to her though.

In her heart she knew that she couldn't stay; it wouldn't be the same. Her trust had been broken, even though she knew Joshua had never really lied to her. He had always reminded her that he was not her birth-father, he was just the man who cared for her and raised her. She had always known she came from somewhere else, perhaps that was part of why she didn't care for the taboos of the Dead Horses, but she had never expected to someday find out where.

Joshua gently put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure this will take you some time to decide. If you choose to leave Zion to travel the Mojave, let me know. I have some things that you would find useful."

She hated how casual he sounded, as though they were just planning a trip downriver somewhere in the canyon. Still, she didn't shout; she was above that. According to the letter, perhaps she had just never been one to raise her voice. It was all more than she wanted to deal with.

"I need to think," she said, carelessly tossing the Mark onto the table. Stepping out of the cave and into the darkness of the night, she let the wind wash over her. She felt hot, and her eyes couldn't focus on any one thing.

The moon was only half waned, leaving a decent amount of light for her to see by. Without bothering for a torch, she began to scamper up the cliffs until she was high enough to see the fires of all the Dead Horses below.

_So is this who I am?_ she asked herself, looking up at the stars. _The spawn of hate and war, a simple attempt to breed a better soldier, cast out for being female? What kind of monstrous people would do that? Did she even want to find out?_ Her thoughts made her head spin. She could go on pretending nothing had changed, marry a Dead Horse and have children of her own. If she wanted, she could even choose not to believe it, but that would force her to call Joshua a liar.

Even though she hated him for not telling her sooner, she didn't blame him. He had done what needed to be done. When Vulpes had come to Zion and found Joshua Graham, there was little that could be done besides take the soldier up on his offer. In exchange for peace in Zion, all Joshua had to do was raise one infant girl and promise never to return to the Mojave again. It seemed like nothing, in exchange for the guaranteed freedom from Caesar's crushing hand.

Part of her ached for someone she could really call 'father,' even if it was only an old, manipulating soldier. The only mother she'd known had been her Dead Horse mother, Paints-the-Sky, and she had died nearly ten years before. Calista hadn't started wondering why she was so different from the others until after that, so she hadn't felt quite the same need for a mother. All her life she had never really had a father.

The quiet of the night felt soft around her, hushed somehow. She settled herself down so that she could stare up at the sky, turning away from the red below to the deep blue-black above.

She had heard little of Vulpes Inculta and his Frumentarii, only able to force a rudimentary explanation past Joshua's lips when she asked over, and over, and over. Part of her wondered why he refused so adamantly to speak of them; she knew that 'The Burned Man' was a legend among the Legion, and the Wasteland at large, and why, but it was a living history that she wanted to know. How could anyone hope to overcome that history if they did not tell it?

If Vulpes really was her father, it at least explained her pale ivory skin; Calista never tanned in the sun, no matter how long she spent in it. She wondered briefly if her grey-green eyes came from her mother or her father, but then another thought struck her.

_What if I have siblings? What if I have a family?_ Her eyes widened at the possibility that she was one of many children of this famed soldier and spy. She didn't dare think about the possibility of having a mother; she didn't think she could stand the thought of finally meeting her birth mother and seeing her bound as a slave.

As she closed her eyes, thinking over unending questions, she listened to the hum of the night. Insects chirped and hummed in the darkness, creatures slithering and creeping along the sands in the distance. She let the night air fill her lungs, exhaling in one long, slow breath.

There was no way around it; she would have to find him, and find answers.


	3. Chapter 3 - Logic

When the sun rose the next morning, all of Calista's doubts washed back over her. She rolled over onto her side under her bighorner skin tent, keeping her eyes shut to the world. Part of her wasn't ready to face the others. She wasn't one of them anymore, whether they realized it or not. The worst part would be facing Joshua.

She couldn't decide how he would act today; whether it would be to pretend nothing had happened and all was normal, or if he would try to approach her again about the previous day's bombshell. Both would be horrendously annoying somehow. With luck, she would be able to avoid him, but she didn't hold out much hope. Joshua had little reason to venture outside of Dead Horse Point. The Dead Horses idolized him, and any time he found something to do, they would go out of their way to do it for him.

Unable to hold off waking any longer, she grudgingly got up and dressed for the day. Her clothes were plain, simple, but more modest than the simple coverings the others wore. Joshua had bought them for her from caravans that passed through. He had always liked surprising her with something new.

She looked around her small living space. She didn't have much, but Joshua had always made sure she was provided for. Her home was carved out of a small bubble in the cave near Joshua's, which he had used to store his belongings before she was given to him. It was raised up from the ground, a thin rope ladder the only way in or out. The tent provided privacy while she slept, and small shelves and metal boxes held all her belongings.

Out of practicality, she kept her clothing in the boxes, keeping the dust and dirt off. The shelves held all the memories of her childhood: toys bought for her by Joshua, others fashioned by her Dead Horse mother, artifacts she herself had found in the canyon, scavenged remnants of the past. A flute carved from a leg bone of a yao guai. A skin from her first kill.

Something tickled against her stomach, sending a shiver through her body. Lifting her shirt slightly, she looked over the tattoo along her ribcage: the symbol of her people, two lizards curling towards each other. It had been given to her after she'd slain that yao guai, proof of her strength. She could have taken more tattoos, but chose not to. While the one made her feel powerful, she did not want her skin to be covered in the designs her people craved. She wondered idly if wastelanders had tattoos.

She dropped her shirt back down, hearing a familiar scraping of dust that meant someone was climbing up the ladder.

"You're awake," said Joshua behind her.

Calista turned around to face him. "Yes. I couldn't sleep well," she said. Her voice held a hint of spite, but she hadn't intended it.

"I'm sorry for that. I'll be leaving Dead Horse Point for much of the day; scavenging around the canyon. I hope to see you still here when I return," Joshua said.

She nodded. "If I leave, it won't be today. I need to prepare myself."

"Yes," he said. He crossed his arms. "When I return, I will tell you anything you wish to know. About the Mojave, the Legion, the battles for the Dam. About Vulpes."

"Alright," Calista said, casting her eyes to the ground and wrapping her arms around her. Their conversation felt stunted to her. The easiness of life between them had gone with the letter that he'd given her.

Without another word, Joshua turned and climbed back down the ladder. Calista followed, having nothing more to do inside.

She found herself breakfast in the food stores, banana yucca, and watched Joshua as he trekked down the river. Despite his burned skin, he moved with ease. This had always surprised her, but she never questioned it. He was rarely willing to talk about his past. The thought that he might come clean with it all was enticing.

"Yah ah tag," came a soft, cheerful voice from behind her. It belonged to Falling-Waters. Calista had been friends with her for longer than she could remember; she'd been there when the girl was born. Falling-Waters was only a few years younger than her, but there were times when their age gap showed.

"Hoi," Calista said in return, smiling at the girl.

Falling-Waters sat down in front of the fire next to her. "How did you sleep?" she asked. "You look tired."

"Fine," said Calista, offhandedly. She didn't want to talk, but didn't want to be rude and just walk away either.

The pair ate their breakfast in awkward silence. Calista tried not to notice Falling-Waters' eyes boring into the side of her face.

"Did Joshua give you that present he was talking about?" Falling-Waters asked, pushing the subject.

"Oh," Calista said, looking straight into the fire. "Yes."

"And?" she pushed, turning so that the rest of her body faced her friend.

Calista sighed inwardly. "It was just a letter."

"A letter?" Falling-Waters asked. "From who? I didn't know anyone wrote to you."

"It was from my father," Calista said, not wanting to outright lie to her friend. "But I don't want to talk about it."

"Your father?" Falling-Waters asked, eyes wide and voice hushed. "Your real father?"

"Yes."

"What did it say?" Falling-Waters asked excitedly.

"I said I don't want to talk about it," Calista said, but something about her friend's pleading expression broke her down. "Not much. It just told me who he was and how to find him."

Her friend squealed, her smile stretching from ear to ear. "That's so exciting!" she said, grabbing Calista's arm with both hands.

"I suppose," Calista said, shrugging. "I mean, this is my family, here. The Dead Horses."

"Of course," Falling-Waters said, nodding vigorously, "but don't you want to meet him?"

"He's…" Calista wasn't sure what to say. "He's not what I'd expected."

"Well," Falling waters said, standing up, "I think you should find him. Even if it does mean you have to visit the taboo places, and even if he isn't what you expected. He's your father. Find him, maybe he'll surprise you." She started to walk away, heading off towards the medicine woman's hut. "If he's related to you, he can't be all bad!" Then Falling-Waters jogged away to where Singing-Bird, the old medicine woman, was waiting for her.

Since Falling-Waters was a true Dead Horse, she had started training in her chosen skill when she was thirteen, two years ago. Calista, on the other hand, was an outsider, despite having been raised with them all her life. She had no formal function in their society.

Calista glanced over at her small garden along the front of the cave she shared with Joshua: the only thing that was really her own job to do at Dead Horse Point. She often went on hunts or gathered fruits with others, but she wasn't a hunter, or a warrior, or anything else. She was just Calista.

As the day went on, the Dead Horses smiled and chatted with her as normal. No one else knew about the letter, or that she was considering leaving Zion. Most of them would be sad to see her go, but would be more concerned that she would be visiting more of the taboo places. They hated anyone who went near old world buildings; it was bad luck, and bad luck sticks.

Calista found herself watching the village more than participating. She wanted to take in what it was about her home that she loved so much, to try to convince herself that there were reasons to stay and forget all this Legion nonsense. After hours of seeing them all interact happily without her presence, she was beginning to conclude that it wasn't going to be all that heartbreaking for either them or herself when she was gone.

What she didn't know was how Joshua would take it. He kept most of his emotions to himself. Even after giving her the most important news of her life he had decided to spend the day wandering the canyons, rather than home with her. Though, when she thought about it, she realized she probably wouldn't have wanted the company. She didn't want help with this decision.

She sat down on a rock at the river's edge, resting her feet in the cool water. It was still and peaceful, easy to see down to the bottom of its shallow depths. Her reflection in the water showed just how different from the others she really was.

Her hair was long and dark, nearly black. She normally kept it braided. The Dead Horses, on the other hand, all shaved off their hair. Even the women did it, to keep it from getting in the way. She was taller than many of them too. Her frame was thin, but well-toned from years of climbing throughout the canyon and along its cliffs. Her eyes were a pale blue-grey, and her skin was always a pale, creamy ivory. Even the ink of her tattoo took on a different hue in her skin, turning a deep shade of indigo rather than the crisp blue-black it did with the Dead Horses.

She felt like a coyote living in a pack of night stalkers; she always stuck out, somehow.

There was one thing that did tie her to them though; she reached down and pulled her Tomahawk from her side. The handle was worn smooth from where her drip had worn into it, and the blade was sharpened down to a fine cutting edge. She flipped it in the air casually. Her skill with it was near unrivaled, which was one thing that the Dead Horses truly respected her about. Any kill she'd brought down had been made with its blade.

"You're going to need something more than that out in the Mojave wastes."

Calista looked from the weapon in her hand to the water, seeing Joshua's reflection behind her. He sat down beside her and pulled a gun from his side, holding it in the palms of his hands.

"I'm giving you one of my .45's; I amassed quite a few of them when Salt-upon-Wounds threatened to take the land of the Dead Horses. They had saved me from death, treating my charred flesh and keeping me alive, and in return I felt bound to help them. Now that there is peace in Zion, we have little use for them. But for where you're going, it may be helpful," Joshua said. He picked it up by the barrel and handed it to Calista.

She carefully tucked the Tomahawk back into her belt and took the offered gun from him, testing its weight. It was heavier than she expected, but about the same weight as her Tomahawk. The grip was cold and unfamiliar in her hands. She wasn't sure if she liked it, but assumed Joshua knew what he was talking about. After all, he had seen the wasteland at its worst.

Calista wasn't sure what to say as she looked the gun over. "I don't know how to shoot," she managed, looking him in the eye for the first time since the night before. She could tell by them that her words had made him grin, even though the rest of his face was obscured by bandages.

Joshua put a hand on her leg. "It would be an honor to teach you. I think you'll pick up on it easily," he said, glancing to her Tomahawk. "You already know how to bring something down, you just need to get used to a new kind of weapon."

Looking down at his hand, Calista saw that the greying bandages on it had started to tear and fall away. She frowned, carefully pulling at one of them to test their strength. It snapped, crumbling at the light pressure.

"We'll need to fix this first," she said, raising an eyebrow. "How long did you want to push it this time?"

Joshua seemed taken aback by her question. "I didn't want to burden you with it just before your birthday," he said. "It's not your cross to bear."

"That may be true, but you're not going to be bearing anyone's crosses if you can't touch anything," she said, then stood up. "Come on, let's get you fixed up."

Joshua said nothing as he followed her. She knew he hated letting her help, but after Paints-the-Sky had died, no one had been as good at tending to his skin as Calista. She'd learned from watching her Dead Horse mother do it over and over, every few days. Sometimes they would wash the wrappings to reuse them, but Joshua would buy new ones from caravans whenever he could. He'd stockpiled many of them in boxes, out of sight.

The pair of them gathered everything they would need for the job from Joshua's stores. Rolls of bandages, extra pins to hold them, fresh aloe leaves, healing powder, soft rags and soap. Calista picked up an old, chipped porcelain bowl to scoop up water from the river with as well. Then, with everything they'd need, they moved to a small area at the back of their cave where cool, clean spring water ran through in a shallow stream.

Wordlessly, Joshua removed his clothes and began tediously pulling the bandages away from his skin. Calista pulled out the pins as necessary, letting him do the rest himself.

"Who's going to help you with this when I go?" she asked quietly, watching as his hands were slowly uncovered.

"I will find a way, with the good Lord's help," he said, just as quiet. "It's been enough years that I could do it alone if necessary."

She frowned at that. "That's no good. You'd pin them right through your skin." Her teasing words were only half serious.

Joshua laughed, a rare sound that Calista treasured. "At least they would stay in place, then."

Calista laughed with him, but shook her head. Later she would ask Singing-Bird, their healer, to help him when she was gone, though she probably didn't need to. The Dead Horses had always cared for Joshua, and they always would.

When enough of the bandages had been pulled away from his arms and torso, she slowly began the painstaking process of washing the dead skin away. So much of his body was burned that it had never quite recovered, leaving him looking more like crispy squirrel bits than she cared to point out. The frayed and tortured nerve endings were confused most of the time, making it so that anything that touched him caused him pain.

Despite it all, Joshua refused to take any chems to help with the pain. He even refused the various teas and tisanes the Dead Horses and other tribes had to offer, saying that the pain was given to him from God. _"And if God wants to push this pain upon me, then I will proudly bear it," _he would say, arguing that if it were otherwise his skin would have healed over time.

Part of her saw the logic, but the rest of her had never believed in god.

She took his hand and carefully pressed the soapy rag against it, rubbing away the flakes of dead skin. Blisters beneath layers of damaged flesh caused it to slide oddly in some places, the strange friction making her stomach turn. Calista was always careful to hide her disgust though; it wasn't Joshua's fault his body was so broken.

Beneath the skin, however, he was a strong and healthy man. His insides had healed with time, leaving only the outer layers unable to return to normal. He could easily carry the heaviest loads, or run faster than yao guai. He could spot a gecko two miles off, and take down a bark scorpion before anyone else had even noticed it.

Calista had always been impressed by Joshua's abilities. His 'disability' could hardly be called such, as it never seemed to affect him. She had always been gentler with him than the others were, who insisted that his 'second skin' made him tougher than everyone, but she knew better. She could feel his body tense up when she pulled away a stuck bit of bandage from his skin when she bathed him. He was tough, but not invincible.

Using the bowl she'd bought, she scooped up the cool water from the stream and poured it over his arms, washing the soap away. Joshua's eyes drifted shut. Calista knew the water soothed him. It was one of the few things that made her feel like she could really help him. The relief showed clearly on what little of his face was visible; he refused to let her help him with his head or legs, so she had never see any part of his face but his eyes.

Letting him soak in the water, she snapped open one of the fat aloe leaves and scooped out the green gel from inside, letting it splat into the bowl. The miracle plant moisturized and had a cooling effect on the skin. To make it easier to collect, she'd transplanted several of the plants from other parts of the canyon to grow along the edge of their cave. It was one of the few things she could do to help him, and he'd appreciated it greatly.

With controlled movements she slowly applied aloe and healing powder to his hands and arms. It clung to the wet skin like sand. Absently she wondered if it was uncomfortable under the bandages, but it worked wonders. Without it, his skin remained brittle and easily cracked. She wrapped fresh bandages around the skin as soon as the aloe had absorbed, working quickly so that the skin didn't have time to fully dry out.

"Thank you," Joshua said once she'd finished with his arms, chest, and stomach, "again. I'll take it from here. I'll meet you out by the back fire when I'm finished. Then we can talk." He waited patiently as she nodded and turned to go.

"I'll cook up something for dinner," she said, walking back towards the main room. "I think some of the hunters brought back a couple of geckos today." Joshua didn't answer, but she knew he'd agreed with a silent nod.

With nothing more to say, she left the cave to find their supper, anxious to finally be able to get the answers she'd always looked for.

A/N: Oh how embarassing, my edits were showing. Sorry for the constant re-uploading of chapters; I keep going back to change things. Thanks for your patience, everyone!


	4. Chapter 4 - Truths

"When I was younger, still foolish enough to believe I had a place in the Legion, Caesar asked me to lead his troops into battle at Hoover Dam. It was the greatest honor he ever bestowed upon me. I wasn't a strategist or tactician, but I was brutal. I allowed myself to develop an ego that was greater than myself. I no longer needed to trust in God, I was the Malpais Legate; I was unstoppable." Joshua stared into the fire, holding a cup of coffee between his hands.

"It was this that was my downfall. I was cocky. Too cocky. It lost me the battle, and Caesar most of his army. It was a failure that could not be tolerated. Rather than crucify me, they marched me out into Zion, back to where they had found me, covered me in pitch and set my body on fire." His eyes closed as he spoke. "But I'd died five times already; the good Lord saw fit to resurrect me one last time.

"I struggled, but after three months of wandering in the desert I found New Caanan. They welcomed me back into the fold as though I had never been gone. It was… enlightening. My second baptism had torn away my pride, and I no longer felt the thirst to prove myself to anyone. Some deeper, darker part of me craved revenge against Caesar, but I quelled that thirst with faith. I never hoped to free myself from it fully, but God again had plans for me.

"I went back out into Zion to spread my faith, as any young New Caananite would do. In my youth I had acted as a translator between the Dead Horses and New Caananites. It seemed only natural to return to them. I had taught them how to hunt better, how to maintain their weapons and pre-war equipment; when I came back to them they showed me their appreciation. Paints-the-Sky found a particular fondness in me, one that I neither encouraged nor denied. She had lost her husband to the Legion some months before my return; I suspect the pain of that loss helped fuel her interest in me in more ways than one.

"For the first few months it was quiet, but Caesar wasn't finished with his conquest. He knew that I was alive. It was a fact he found most upsetting." Joshua shifted, setting his coffee down and resting his elbows against his knees. The fire reflected back at Calista in his eyes. She hated the way it quivered in front of him, simultaneously pulling towards him and pushing itself away.

"Caesar sent dozens of assassins to kill me. When each of them failed, he started sending his Frumentarii. Spies. One of them did particularly well, posing as a tribal, but the scars across his back gave him away," Joshua said, then gave a short, cold laugh. "He forgets that I trained many of his soldiers. I never forget a face, no matter how masked it may be."

Calista moved closer to the fire, hanging on Joshua's words. She had never heard him speak so much at one time unless he was talking about god, a topic she was usually not even slightly interested in.

"Vulpes, however, had a natural talent. He joined the legion at a young age, I've heard, but I never asked him his story; it didn't matter," Joshua said, glancing up at Calista.

Calista cocked her head to the side in question, but didn't ask the question verbally. She was afraid that the sound of her own voice would cause break off his story early somehow.

"We… did not exactly get along well. He was jealous of how quickly I ascended the ranks of the Legion, and I was of his talent. He has a sense for planning, strategy, careful and exact movements. I was more abrupt, fast acting. He might take weeks to plan a careful assassination, whereas I would have simply found the target and gunned him down," he said. He shook his head, then looked down to the ground between his feet. "I was a different man then. I enjoyed killing then. Now it's simply a chore necessary to survive."

Shock shook through Calista. She couldn't imagine the picture Joshua was painting of himself, sure that he must be exaggerating out of some sort of self-loathing or regret. She herself had never killed a man, only animals for food or in defense. The image of Joshua, gun in bandaged hands, flashed into her mind as she remembered a time when she was small, being chased down by a White Leg warrior. She had screamed and ran to hide, but Joshua had simply pulled his gun from his side, glanced down the sights and fired a single shot. It pierced the White Leg man directly between the eyes. He had been cool and collected, his response instant.

She had never thought about him being a killer. It almost surprised her that he could ever have been one. It was a side of Joshua she didn't want to see.

Joshua hung his head, clasping his hands together. "Caesar's men continued to fail to kill me. Groups of soldiers, assassins, snipers; none of them managed to bring me down, though some came close. I considered letting one of them think I was dead, but I didn't want to give Caesar that satisfaction. It was selfish of me, endangered everyone who cared for me, but I couldn't give in. Eventually he sent the best of his men." Joshua looked up at Calista. "That was Vulpes, your father."

Calista moved a little closer to Joshua. Though the night was still and she was near the fire, her body seemed to refuse to warm up. She rubbed her hands together, stuffing them between her knees.

"He was a natural born killer. Lithe, agile, a good actor. Smooth movements and calculated words. He wasn't fond of guns but he could pick the cap off a bottle at 100yds with a pistol. It seemed like there was nothing he couldn't do. I knew it would only be a matter of time before he came for me. In a fair fight between us, I'm still not sure who would have won. But neither of us fought fair when he came.

"We saw him coming a long ways off, but he never became hostile, not even when he saw one of the Dead Horses watching him from a hiding place. He could easily have killed the man, but he just kept walking. I didn't have to tell the Dead Horses not to attack him, but I asked them to leave him to me if it came down to it. Killing him would have been a final victory over Caesar, proving that I could survive anyone he sent for me." Joshua finally looked back up, gazing longingly into the fire.

"Did he try to sneak up on you?" Calista asked before she could stop herself. She immediately clamped her mouth shut, but Joshua didn't seem to mind the interruption.

Joshua grinned, Calista could see it in his eyes. "No," he said, tilting his head slightly. "He walked straight through the camp and walked up to me directly. He said 'you'll forgive me, but I cannot call you by your name. Caesar has ordered the death of any man who speaks it.' Then told me he had business to discuss, and I asked him to sit down. It was… strange. We had never had a civil conversation; more often than not our interactions ended in floggings ordered by Caesar to sort us out."

Calista almost wanted to laugh, but the thought of flogging as a punishment for not getting along with someone made her stomach turn. She could tell Joshua had noticed, because he shook his head and dropped the subject.

"You were pressed to his chest, just a tiny thing. He'd wrapped a blanket around his body, over one shoulder and down across his other side, tight. You never moved, just content where you were, not making a sound. And as much as I hated it, he made me a deal I couldn't refuse." Joshua hung his head again, digging one of his heels into the dirt. "I'm ashamed to admit it, but I saw you then as nothing but a burden and a bargaining tool."

Unsure of what to say, if anything, Calista moved closer to him, putting a hand on his leg. He looked at her, and she could tell he smiled.

He put his own hand on hers briefly, sitting up straighter. "I needed to be dead; it was an obvious fact to both of us. He knew I couldn't just keep putting down Caesar's men one by one until he eventually sent the entire Legion after me. On the other hand, he knew I would never give in so easily to Caesar as to just 'play dead.' I wanted to live in peace, and for my people to live in peace as well. What he offered was a strange bargain, but one worth considering.

"He proposed that, in return for raising you as one of my own, he would tell Caesar that I was no longer a problem. Caesar had no interest in the meager remains of the tribes in Zion, and the land was of little strategic value to him in his war." Joshua looked back to their cave, then continued to stare into the fire. "All I had to do was raise you, keep you alive and well for as long as I could, and promise never to leave Zion while Caesar still lived."

"Never leave?" Calista asked, leaning forward to look in his eyes. "Why?"

"So that Caesar would never know that we lied," Joshua said, his voice filled with bitterness. "If he found out I was alive it would be the end for both of us. He would send as many men as it took to kill me, and he would hang Vulpes up on a cross, or worse, for his betrayal. Vulpes was already both crossing Caesar and trusting me by bringing you here. If I hadn't seen that there was truth in his eyes I would have thought it was an elaborate trick to lure me in to my death."

"What did he say about me?" Calista asked. She bit her lip, focusing on every word Joshua said to commit it to memory.

"Only that you were his daughter, and his firstborn. That he refused to kill his own progeny. He was a good actor, but he couldn't hide the truth this time. I knew he'd fully intended to… dispose of you," he said gently, glancing over to Calista. "But there was something desperate hidden behind the mask of his indifference. He cared deeply for you, as much as he tried to deny it even to himself."

Calista felt a warmth spread over her at his words. The thought that her father hadn't simply abandoned her was comforting, though she wasn't sure she completely believed it just yet. "And nothing else? Nothing of my mother?"

"Just that your name was Calista. It's a Latin name; it means 'the most beautiful.' I don't think he counted on me to know that, otherwise he might have tried harder to show apathy," Joshua said.

_The most beautiful_, Calista thought, over and over. A smile grew on her face as she repeated it in her mind: _the most beautiful, the most beautiful, the most beautiful._

"What was he like?" she asked, crossing one leg over the other as she spoke.

Joshua gave a short, stunted laugh. "A woman would call him 'smooth.' Even when his words are harsh or violent they flow like silk from his silver tongue. I suppose he's handsome too; high cheekbones, angular features. His skin is even more pale than yours. A friend once told me he never trusted a man that didn't tan in the Mojave-sun, with reference to Vulpes in particular."

"What does that mean, anyway?" Calista asked. "_Vulpes._" She tested the name on her tongue. It felt strange.

"Vulpes Inculta more or less means 'Rough Fox,' but Vulpes translates simply as 'Fox.' Non-Legion men sometimes call him that," he said. He stretched his legs and arms forward, rotating his wrists back and forth. When he pulled his arms back, Calista noticed that his right hand landed instinctually on his gun in its holster. Her eyes lingered on the pistol before she chose to look down at the dirt instead.

"I'm sure you have more questions, but it has gotten quite late. You'll have to forgive my exhaustion; changing these is always a tiring ordeal," Joshua said, lifting his hand and shaking it to gesture to the clean, white bandages wrapped around him. "Why don't you take that all in for now. We can talk more in the morning."

Though she wanted desperately to protest, Calista agreed, nodding. Joshua's eyes were bloodshot and she could see he was uncomfortable. He was hunched over leaning on one leg, heavy lidded eyes drifting lower as he spoke. He still faced into the fire, but his gaze seemed to drift through it before snapping back to reality.

Calista stayed seated in front of the fire as Joshua carefully stood. He stretched, pressing his hands into his lower back, then said his goodnight by way of a gentle hand on her shoulder. It made her smile, but it didn't quite make her happy. As his footsteps faded away, she wondered when it was that he'd started caring about her as a person. When he had stopped seeing her as a bargaining chip. A burden.

She understood his reasoning. He'd never intended on having children, she was sure. Family wasn't something he was fond of; he didn't want the liability. Joshua had always been a loner, even when surrounded by a loyal and loving community. The Dead Horses were people he could take care of, teach, convert; though they had never exactly caught on to his "good news" in the way other tribes of Zion had, he continued to spit out psalms as a cure for any ailment, a resolution to any problem.

Faith was something that Calista had never been good at. Even if Joshua wanted to see Caesar's assassins as tests sent by god, she didn't feel was a fair one. The wasteland amounted to kill or be killed, plain and simple. The easiest way to survive was to hope that no one noticed you were alive, and if they did you better have a shotgun handy. Whether it was a tribal, a raider, a soldier, or even a simple trader, trust was fleeting and easy to buy. No task was too lowly if the caps were good enough. If there was a god, he was certainly a hell of an asshole.

_What made him join the legion?_ Calista wondered. She wasn't sure if she was talking about Joshua or Vulpes, or both. Joshua had made it sound like he didn't have much he could say about Vulpes. Discouraged, she kicked a log at the edge of the campfire. It hissed, the pile of wood resettling itself as ashen chunks collapsed in at the center. Joshua's past both intrigued and scared her.

She turned to where he had been, staring at the now-empty place at the fire. _What is it about this Caesar that is so appealing?_ she thought, racking her brain for questions she could ask in the morning. If the man was somehow more appealing than god to even Joshua at one point, there had to be something special about the man. He had to be intelligent, or perhaps intimidating; both would be necessary to rule over the wasteland. Perhaps he was a charismatic charmer. Maybe he was just rich enough to be able to hire some charismatic charmers.

Like her father.

Her brow creased. If Vulpes was silver-tongued then that was one major difference between him and herself already; Calista knew she was terrible with words. She was quick to anger, often saying things she didn't really mean. Joshua knew and understood this about her, but the rest of the world wouldn't be as forgiving. Often she spoke out before she could stop herself, or voiced thoughts that were better left unsaid. If anything was going to get her in trouble in the wasteland, her harsh temper would be it.

She glanced down at her tomahawk. It was one she'd made herself. The blade of a broken hatchet capped a hand-carved wooden handle, smoother and easier to handle than the metal pipes so often used in makeshift weapons. She had built it to last, and it had held up well over the years. With luck it would continue to do so. Still, she was glad that Joshua would be giving her a gun. Though she'd never used one, she felt safer knowing it would be there. Her tomahawk was deadly and her aim was sharp, but the range of the weapon was nothing compared to a pistol.

The fire cracked again, making her jump. With a sigh, she stood and stretched. There was little she could do so late in the day, but she was restless. _What will happen when I get to Fortification Hill?_ _How will I find my way in the wasteland? Should I try to find someone to travel with, or just quietly make my way alone?_ Questions about the world outside Zion swarmed in her mind louder than a whole nest of cazadores. Worse were the questions she didn't really want answers to. Like what might happen to her if Caesar found out who she really was.

Her hand felt for the Mark against her leg in her pocket as the rest of her wondered what 'The Fort' would be like. All she was sure of was that there would be constant eyes on her from the moment the Legion noticed her approach. It was an unnerving concept, that she might be considered a threat. But then again, she'd spent her life living under the guidance of Joshua Graham; maybe there was something in her to fear.


	5. Chapter 5 - Bullets and Psalms

Calista held the pistol out in front of her, using both hands as Joshua had instructed. Gazing carefully down the sights, she prepared to shoot, but his voice stopped her.

"Relax your arms," he said, walking up behind her. "You don't want them sore from it. This gun carries a kick."

She tried to relax her arms, but every time she tried to line up the shot with her eyes her whole body tensed. Throwing a tomahawk was a whole different type of stance; she could be running and easily throw it with one smooth movement, the whole of her body working to carry the projectile into the target. With the pistol she had to hold incredibly still to figure out where the shot would land.

Again, she lined up her shot, but when she pulled the trigger she found her arms jolted by the recoil. She didn't make a sound, but her face showed her discomfort. She was thankful that Joshua couldn't see it.

"Relax," Joshua said again, stepping so that he stood just inches behind her. He reached his arms around her, adjusting her posture. "Like this," he said. "Not so relaxed that you let it fall away from where you want to aim, but not so tense that you hurt yourself."

The closeness of his body was strange to her; both reassuring and concerning at once. She felt the strength of his shoulders against her own. His chest pressed against the length of her back as he held her arms in place. Heat radiated from his body to hers.

"If you let your elbows down just slightly it lets momentum take the hit instead of your arms," he said, raising her arms and pulling them back just a little. He took half a step back and took hold of her shoulders, rolling them back and around in circles. "And if you loosen up here you can better track your target." She felt his fingers just barely massaging her upper arms before he walked back to the table he had been sitting on.

"Now try it," he said.

She shook her head clear and stared at the row of tin cans in front of her. Some were bent, crushed in the middle. Eying one at the left end of the row, she aimed and took the shot, but missed.

"Damnit," she cursed quietly, dropping her hands back down.

"You're doing better," Joshua said encouragingly behind her. "Tell you what: make that shot and I'll let you ask one of your questions."

Calista sighed, shaking her head. The gun felt heavy in her hands; holding it up was something she wasn't used to. She squinted, focusing her eyes on the can, and pulled the trigger. The can sputtered away, off to the side; she'd hit it.

"What's going to happen when I get to the Fort?" she asked, still looking at the cans. Adrenaline coursed through her as she lined up another shot and pulled the trigger. This time she missed.

"The fact that you're a woman might change things somewhat, but I cannot say for certain. The standard procedure at least used to be that you would surrender your weapons before entering, then you could find your way to Caesar so long as you had the Mark," Joshua said, not moving. "Then he would speak with you and send you on your way."

Calista shot again, missing a second time. She cursed again under her breath.

"You, however, are not visiting Caesar." Calista heard the crunching of dust under his shoes. "If fact, you're probably going to do best if you can avoid Caesar altogether. Edward never was forgiving of women. Your biggest problem may be, however, that it's entirely possible that the Fort is no longer home to Vulpes. Nearly 15 years have passed since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. There would be no strategic value in staying there."

"Well it's all I've got to work with," Calista snapped, squeezing off another shot. This time the second can in the row flew backwards. "And what do you mean, 'Edward' was never forgiving of women?" she asked, turning to look at him, lowering the gun. She nearly jumped, seeing he was standing directly behind her.

"Women are considered to be of low value by the Legion, useful only for cleaning and bearing sons," Joshua said, handing her another fully loaded magazine for the gun. "If he could get away with eradicating the gender entirely, I'm fairly convinced he would. They're just lower forms of life in his mind. It's a 'value' he teaches to the rest of the legion."

"Well that's shitty, but I was more asking about the 'Edward' part there," Calista said, snatching the magazine out of his hand and replacing it with the empty one from her gun.

Joshua walked back to the table and sat down again, loading bullets back into the empty magazine. "Surely you don't believe he was born with the name Caesar?" Joshua asked, easily avoiding her real question.

She sighed, reloading her gun with a violent slam. She brought her arms back up, aimed, and shot the next can down from its perch.

"You shoot better when you're angry," Joshua said, his tone casual. "That's good. It'll help you in the long run."

Calista frowned, angry, but he was right. She shot down the last can, stomped back to Joshua's side, and dropped the pistol onto the table beside him.

He gave her a look but said nothing.

"Tell me about him," Calista demanded. "How did you even meet him? And when?"

Joshua paused, taking a deep breath. "It was the summer of 2246, if memory serves me," he said, but Calista cut him off before he could say more.

"2246?" she asked in disbelief. "But that's almost 50 years ago!"

"Yes," he said simply. Calista could hear the grin in his voice. "Yes, I suppose it was."

"How old _are_ you?" she asked, incredulously, forgetting what she was doing. She turned to look back at Joshua.

"When I was baptized in fire God saw fit to restore upon me the gift of youth," Joshua said. Calista couldn't tell if he was being serious or making a joke. "I have aged little since that day."

Calista didn't know what to think. "So, how did you meet him, 50 years ago?" she asked, though she wasn't sure she believed his words.

"I was a translator for the New Caananites, supposedly one of the best, working here in Zion. Edward was a scribe with the Followers of the Apocalypse, with a focus in linguistics." He set down the magazine he'd loaded for her.

"And?" she pressed.

"And he came to Zion to study tribal dialects," Joshua said. "He wasn't Caesar then; he was just Edward. Charismatic, narcissistic, driven. Failure wasn't an option for him. It still isn't."

Still frowning, Calista tilted her head, thinking. "Did you know?" she asked. "That he would become what he did?"

Joshua looked down at the table. "There is potential for good and bad in all of us. I could lift this gun and kill you with it right now if I wanted to, but to what end would it achieve? I could have lied to you about all of this. I could have chosen to burn that letter from your father instead of giving it to you."

Calista sighed. "You're talking in circles again. Sometimes I feel like I need to do drugs to understand you."

Joshua shook his head. "If you're considering bringing any, Caesar will have them stowed with your weapons when you arrive at the Fort," he said, his tone neutral. "I'd suggest not bringing any in with you, not even stimpacks. The Legion looks on drug use as a sign of the weak. You might be able to get away with some things if you play your cards right, but I would suggest you use caution."

"How would you suggest I behave, then?" Calista asked, leaning on the table with both fists. It teetered slightly under the combined weight of her fists and Joshua sitting on the edge, so she moved around to sit on the other side of the table instead.

"Be strong, but listen to what they tell you to do. Don't be crass or try to humiliate any of them either. They will not find it funny coming from you. Do not ask favors either. Men do not do such things for women in their 'society.' Even asking could get you into trouble. I don't want to hear about you getting strung up on a cross because you insulted a high ranking officer or something similar," he said, staring forward.

Calista watched the sun setting in the distance, golden rays of sunlight filtering through the clouds. "I don't know how I'm going to get there," she admitted. "I've packed what few things I plan to bring, but I don't even know where I'm going."

"Travel with one of the caravans to New Vegas. From there I'm sure you could find your way. You could hire a mercenary to bring you; then you'd have protection as well," Joshua said, leaning back on his elbows. "Or find another caravan to travel with. Even perhaps some Legion troops heading back to the Fort. There are many options for you."

"When is a caravan coming?" Calista asked, trying to remember the last time she'd seen one go through their territory.

"Happy Trails is due any day now," Joshua said, turning his head to look up at her. "I'm sure they'd be happy to have you, so long as you can carry your own weight. They'd take you as a favor to me, if nothing else."

Calista groaned, rolling her eyes and putting her head in her hands. "Great, now I'm a burden that's taken on as a favor."

Joshua laughed, shoving her shoulder playfully. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee," he quoted with devious eyes.

"Oh, now I see why you're sending me away!" Calista said, laughing. "It's going to make god happy, is it?"

"He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved," he continued, finishing the quote. His tone held a mock wisdom that only made her laugh more.

"If we hadn't just given you clean bandages I might have had to shove you off the table for that, you know," she threatened, trying to sound serious.

"With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation," he said sagely, parroting another psalm at her and nodding his head.

Calista shook her head and stood. She slid the gun into its holster at her side; it still felt awkward there. She would have preferred to have her tomahawk there instead. Absently she noted to find a way to holster both at her side later. "Come on, let's get back," she said, looking back to Joshua.

He nodded once, carefully sliding off the table and walking beside her.

"You know," Calista said, glancing up at him, "as much as you frustrate me with your god-talk and carefully avoided questions, I'm going to miss you." She stared at the ground, not sure she wanted to see his reaction.

Joshua put an arm around her shoulders, saying nothing as they walked back to their home. Calista let her head rest on his shoulder. Though he was often stand-offish, there were times when he was almost human.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for your patience guys, and I'm sorry it's such a short chapter. I'll make the next one longer to make up for it. I just wanted to be sure to get you guys something soon!


	6. Chapter 6 - Happy Trails

Calista awoke to the sounds of metal clanking together, loud talking, and the unmistakable disgruntled murning of brahmin. She yawned, rolling over. Everything in her room had been carefully sorted through and picked over, the most important things packed into her back frame along with her clothes. Her gun and her tomahawk waited patiently too, leaning up against it with two extra magazines for the .45.

She shut her eyes tight, trying to pretend she couldn't hear anything.

Now that the day was actually here she didn't know if she could go.

Caesar's Mark fell against her sleeping roll as she rolled onto her side, the leather cord pulling on her neck. She stared at it, knowing that she had no more time to waver back and forth on her decision. Everything was ready, and she was going to go whether or not she wanted to.

"Cal!" came Falling-Water's unmistakable voice from the room below. "Cal, come! Happy Trails is here! I've got breakfast for you."

"Yah ah tag; I'm coming, I'm coming," Calista said, trying not to sound grouchy. She'd overslept and it made her head hurt.

The air was cool in the cave, but she knew the sun would be brutal, so she dressed in light clothing. She glanced at the two weapons on the ground beside her back frame. Her eyes lingered on the tomahawk longingly, but instead she took the pistol, sliding it through the fat, leather loop hanging from her belt.

"There's the lady of the day!" shouted a tall, dark-skinned man. He wore a broad smile that seemed to take up all his face, except for where his bright eyes shined out from under the brim of his hat.

"Hi Jay," Calista said, her voice still thick with sleep. She couldn't help but grin, seeing the giant smile on his face. His constant happiness was infectious. "How are you?"

"Oh just fine, making my way along. You know. And I hear you're coming with me for a spell?" he asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

"Yes," Calista said, hesitantly. She glanced at Joshua, but he shook his head 'no,' and went back to turning a gecko leg on its spit over the fire. "I just think it's time to get out and see the world, really," she said, looking back to Jay. "You know, get in an adventure or two before I decide to settle down or something."

Jay laughed loud and long. "I don't think you'll ever settle down," he said, clapping her on the shoulder and leading her to the fire. "I've known you since you were just a tiny little thing, running out towards the river whenever Joshua wasn't looking. You gave him more heart attacks than you know, girl."

Calista grinned sheepishly. "I guess I've always had a thing for exploring, then."

"That you have, Cal. That you have. I knew you'd be wanting to get out there into the Mojave sometime, it was just a matter of time," Jay said. He sat down, pouring himself a glass of water from a metal pitcher.

"No, thank you," she heard Joshua say, and glanced up to see Falling-Waters passing around a basket of fruit. When the basket got to her, Calista was sad to see they were out of banana yucca. Her friend tapped her on the shoulder though and slipped her one from under the basket. Calista grinned.

"Thanks," she said quietly with a smile.

Falling-Waters smiled and moved on to hold the basket out for Jay, who thanked her and took a cactus fruit.

"So, where you lookin' to travel to?" Jay asked, turning to Calista.

"Oh, I dunno," she said, trying to sound offhand. "I figured I'd go to New Vegas and see the lights, then make a real plan from there."

"Oh, New Vegas eh?" Jay said with a grin. "You'll have to be careful there, don't get into too much trouble." He winked at Calista, then turned to Joshua. "You really going to let her go there?"

Joshua nodded, looking through the fire at him. "She's old enough to make her own decisions about it. All I can do is offer guidance."

"That's true," Jay said, cocking his head to the side briefly. "And she's always been the wanderin' type. Has a knack for findin' trouble though." His voice showed his concern.

"I'll be fine," Calista cut in, keeping her annoyance out of her tone. "I've got a gun and a tomahawk, and I know how to use them. And I don't find trouble," she concluded, "trouble finds me."

Jay laughed. "That's true too, that's true." He bit down into the cactus fruit, juice welling up over the edge and dripping onto the ground. "Well, I suppose while we're walkin' I can tell you about the Mojave," he said through his mouthful. "Since Joshua won't be there to do it. I still think you're crazy letting a beautiful girl like her go alone into New Vegas though."

"I have faith," Joshua said, glancing at Calista. "Both in her and in God."

Calista smiled. "I'm sure I won't be going anywhere alone, either. I might just keep traveling with caravans. I want to meet people, and it seems like the easiest way."

"That it would be!" Jay said, finishing his breakfast. "Though you're gonna need something to offer if you're going with caravans. They don't like taking on people just for the sake of company."

"You're taking me, aren't you?" she asked, unconcerned. "It'll all work out. I've got lots of healing powder to sell anyway."

"Dang good healing powder too. It's always one of my bestsellers between here and New Vegas. But once you get out there you'll need to find a backup seller, if that's the way you're goin' with it. Most folks out there use stimpaks. Just the way of the world out there."

"Well… I can hunt," she said, thinking over her skills. "And I'm pretty good at foraging."

"You may want to be careful with that," Joshua interjected. "Last I knew, scavengers and foragers aren't a favorite of the Mojave wastes."

"True that," Jay said, agreeing. "But you're right, hunting would be good. If you know how to cure hides you might want to try that too; they sell at a fine price. I'm sure you'll come up with all sorts of ideas once we hit the road."

"When are we leaving?" Calista asked, her heart beating harder against her chest.

"Tomorrow morning. Gotta let old 'Belle here rest a night before she sets back to the trails again. I don't know how many more Happy Trails she has left in her," Jay said, patting the brahmin on the side. "She may have to retire soon."

"I am sure she will have many more good years in her," Joshua said, standing up. "Now, I have work I must tend to. Rest your legs for a while, Jay. Calista? If you could come with me? I would like to discuss some things with you."

Calista nodded, finishing her banana yucca and standing quickly to follow him.

"I'll be here all day!" Jay said, his voice bright. He was a genuinely happy man, something that Calista was always pleased and confused by. It seemed to her that there were no truly happy folk in the world.

Joshua led her back into their cave, finding their way to a small area off to the side where he kept the majority of his supplies. It was poorly organized, but seemed to do well enough for Joshua. He moved boxes and cases around until he reached the one he was looking for. Carefully he removed the lid, then pulled out four faded boxes of .45 ammunition and handed them to Calista.

"These are for you to take," he said. "Consider it a gift to go with your new gun. Ammunition for the .45 Auto has become increasingly harder to find, especially so after I scoured the wastes for it. Unfortunately New Caanan is still in no state to manufacture more, so this may be all you will have with you out there. Use it wisely. I would suggest that, when you can, you use your tomahawk."

She carefully took the boxes from him, lining them up along her arm. "Thank you," she said, not knowing what else to say. She'd hoped he would provide at least some ammunition for the gun, but didn't expect so much.

"I would like to take you back to our practice range for a while. You can practice with a 10mm, to save your ammo," he continued, pulling another box from a shelf beside them. "You'll find it in excess in the Mojave."

Calista brought the .45 ammunition over to her room, setting it down carefully on the floor at the entrance, then followed Joshua. He led her back out into the scorching heat, then down a path cut into the cliffside that

They set off, splashing along the river with every step. Calista took her shoes off to walk with her bare feet against the smooth stones of the riverbed.

Joshua's look said that he wanted to scold her, but he said nothing and simply continued on downriver.

"I'll be fine," Calista said, trying to reassure him. She'd always hated shoes, preferring to feel the real world beneath her feet. It kept her footing sure and her balance precise. "You know I've been walking barefoot my whole life. And the Dead Horses do too."

Joshua still said nothing. She could see his eyes glancing around as they moved, keeping an eye out for any possible threats. At the bottom of the canyon they were easy targets, but Joshua's eyes were sharp and his aim exact.

It struck Calista just how much trust she had always placed in Joshua. She felt safe wandering Zion with him; safe enough that she could sleep easy in a world that was out to kill any- and everyone in it. Something pulled, sharp, in her gut when she thought about leaving that safety in a matter of hours.

She started to step on a sharp rock, but reflexively pulled her foot back to step down smoother stones. The cool water flowing along her ankles felt good, but she knew it should have been higher. The heat was intense, and it had been an even dryer summer than normal. Drought was a serious concern, and something they would have to prepare for if the water got much lower.

With luck, she figured, things would be better in the South. Once they reached Vegas, she assumed it would be easy enough to find what she would need to survive. In Zion you could only rely on yourself to be prepared for whatever might lie ahead.

The pair turned away from the river and up a steep path along the bank, climbing to a plateau that was far enough away from everyone to be a safe shooting area. Joshua had used it time and time again to teach others who were interested in his art. There were benches set up at various distances which could be used to line up practice targets on, allowing a more advanced shooter to continue to practice at the makeshift range. There was a table to sit on or around, and a pre-war trailer served as a storage area for their targets: empty soda bottles, tin cans, anything that was useless and could be shot at.

Calista tied on a pair of handmade sandals made from thick gecko leather. While most of the places she went were safe to walk barefoot, the range was littered with shards of glass.

"Here," Joshua said, handing her a gun. "This is a N99 10mm pistol. They were made to stand up under harsh conditions, and have stood the test of time. They do, however, have downsides. They're clunky, have more kickback and poor accuracy. And even though they hold up well, they're prone to jamming if not frequently cleaned and maintained."

"So why does everyone have them if they're shit?" Calista asked, looking the gun over. It didn't feel like an extension of her arm so much as a brick tied to the end of it.

"They were mass produced before the War; a standard, military issue pistol. It makes them easier to find, and cheaper to purchase." Joshua pulled a crate of bottles and cans out of the trailer and started setting them up along the closest bench.

Calista frowned, testing the weight feel of the gun in her hands and swinging it around. "It feels awkward."

"Yes," Joshua agreed, setting down the crate. He walked back to the table and sat down on the edge like he had the last time they were there. "Give it a try."

Calista loaded the gun, sliding the magazine in. It ground against something before clicking into place. She shook her head with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. "Alright. Here goes."

She lined up the shot, staring down at a faded bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla: her enemy. The gun felt heavy in her hands, the barrel wanting to nose-dive every time she thought her aim was right. She lifted it just a hair, her sights focused on the logo on the center of the bottle, and pulled the trigger.

No good. She lowered her aim, but again found no luck.

"Aim with your hands, not the sights. You'll be a better judge of the shot than it will," Joshua said. "The sights on a 10mil are, in a word, useless."

With a curse Calista shot again, this time grazing the bottle just light enough to tip it on its side. It rolled off the bench and onto the dusty ground with a soft thunk.

"This gun is shit," Calista said, not sure whether if she wanted to throw it or laugh.

"It is," Joshua agreed, nodding.

"I mean I'm not going to have to shoot something this small, am I?" she asked, turning to look at Joshua.

He shrugged. "It _is_ unlikely."

With a smirk, she jogged over to the row of bottles, sliding them so that they all touched together in a row of five, then strode back to the shooting line. She aimed for the center bottle, and managed to shatter the one on the far left.

Joshua laughed behind her, a genuine, deep, throaty laugh. "You never could stick to a set of rules. If you don't like the outcome you change the game."

Calista smiled broad, nodding, and shot again, aiming to the right again. The next bottle in the row exploded into endless pieces. One by one the bottles disappeared, though the aim was bad enough that she still missed several times; halfway down the row she had to reload.

She set up another row of bottles, this time on the next bench, another few yards away. "Tell me about other guns in the wasteland," Calista said, adding a quick, "please," to the demand. Joshua had warned her, time and time again, that it was better to ask questions than make demands, but it was hard for her to break her speech patterns.

"Well," Joshua started, letting out a heavy breath, "there's the 9mm pistol. It's similar to what you're using, and it's lighter but also less effective. The NCR used it as a standard issue weapon though, so they're easy to find. They also tended to use service rifles, making them common finds as well."

Calista shot at the second row of bottles, beginning to understand how the bullets tended to fly. Still, they didn't seem to go where she wanted except by chance. She cursed under her breath with every missed shot.

"Another route would be to look for energy weapons. Plasma and laser weapons are powerful, though harder to find ammunition for. Plasma has a higher accuracy of shot, but a lower rate of fire; laser is the inverse, with a high rate of fire and a lower accuracy," Joshua continued. He crossed his arms, thinking. "I've hardly used them myself though, so I can tell you little more about them."

Calista watched as another shot powered into the dirt behind the bottle she'd aimed for. "I feel like I'd have better luck shooting this with my eyes closed," she muttered.

"To be honest, your luck would probably be about the same whether or not your eyes were open," Joshua said, amused.

"Why did you hand this to me? It'll be morning before I shoot these all down," she said, her voice thick with frustration.

"I have no use for it," Joshua said bluntly. "It's a terrible pistol, it's common where you're going, and I don't mind wasting the ammo."

Calista laughed, though she was still annoyed. "Great."

The sun climbed higher in the sky until it bore down on top of them both with scorching intensity. After an hour of frustrated hits and misses, Calista gave up on shooting to sit in the shade inside the too-hot trailer.

"Here," Joshua said. "I brought lunch." He handed her a few pieces of cooked meat on a long metal spike.

"Gecko?" she asked, looking at it before taking a bite. "Mm, no," she corrected herself. "Iguana."

Joshua nodded. He pulled carefully at the bandages on his face, creating a hole just large enough to eat through, then took a bite himself.

Calista always felt privileged to eat with Joshua; it was something he avoided doing around others. Most felt uncomfortable seeing the burned skin of even his fingertips, but his much of his body was still scarred by the fire. Part of his upper lip was missing, the skin having never grown back, and the sight was disturbing.

Calista though, having grown up with him, just knew it as another thing that made him Joshua. She had learned how to carefully manage the balance of not-staring and not-looking-away, but Joshua still often preferred to eat alone rather than with even her company.

"I don't know I'll ever be able to shoot well with something like this," Calista said, jerking her head in the direction of the pistol. It sat outside on the table by the extra ammunition. She'd grown tired of seeing it.

"Few can. It takes an expert marksman and a well-cared-for weapon," Joshua said, his voice no longer muffled by bandages. It felt raw compared to the more common sound, muffled by the long white strips of fabric. He thought for a moment, tilting his head as he chewed hard on a tough piece of meat and swallowed. "Your father could probably do it."

"Even with that?" Calista asked, incredulous. "I feel like I could hold it against the damn target and still miss!"

Joshua smiled, a gruesome sight with his broken lips and stained teeth showing. "Even with that."

Calista looked down at the kabob in her hands, staring through it and into the floor. "I keep wondering if I really want to meet him," she confessed, taking another bite. "He sounds like an asshole, but if he's my father I still want to at least see what he looks like." She looked up at him, uncertain. "Do you really think I should go?"

"It's a decision you need to make for yourself," he said, looking her in the eyes. "But, were I in your situation, I would go."

"Why?" she asked.

Joshua, leaned back against the wall of the trailer, stretching out one leg and propping up his wrist with the other. "I do not remember my own father. He died when I was too young to really remember. I cannot help but wonder if I would be a different man now had I known him in my youth." He shifted, looking down at the top of his shoe. "There will be insights into the world that only your father can give you, things which only he can explain about you, stories that he can share that will only make sense to you."

"You're like a father to me, though," Calista said, interjecting. "Isn't that enough?"

Joshua smiled, still looking down. "No, not really. I can offer you guidance, but I can't tell you why you are the way you are. Only he can explain those secrets to you. I see similarities between the two of you, and I am sure you will find more yourself."

"What sort of similarities?" Calista asked, realizing she had been leaning farther and farther forward as he spoke. She straightened herself, trying to relax her shoulders.

"You hold your fists to fight in the same strange way as he does," Joshua said, cocking his head to the side. "You both have a habit of nodding once when you say goodbye. Your eyes are both the same rare shade. You even have similar voices."

"Really?" she asked, hanging on every word.

Joshua chuckled. "Yes. I have found one very obvious difference between you, though," he said.

Hey eyes widened. "What?"

"You," he said, sitting up straighter, "talk much more."

Calista smirked wryly at him. "I'm not sure if that's a compliment," she said, trying not to laugh.

"I'm not sure it is either," he said, smirking as well. "But last I knew, it was true."

The pair grinned in silence as they finished their lunch. The sun was slowly sliding across the sky, its light silently creeping up Calista's leg where she sat in the trailer. Once it reached the middle of her thigh it became too uncomfortably warm, and she moved to sit next to Joshua.

Joshua was readjusting his bandages again to cover his mouth, but didn't seem to object her closeness.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," she said, letting her head rest against the wall. "Do you really think we need to stay? Or can we head back?"

"If you would prefer to head back to camp we may do so," he said. "It is unlikely you will gain skill with the 10mm even with days of practice. I simply wanted you to spend more time with a gun in your hands before you leave with Jay tomorrow."

"Thank you," Calista said. She put a hand on his arm, resting her head on his shoulder briefly to show her appreciation. "Even if it does suck, I'm sure the practice helps."

Joshua nodded. "Practice when you can, but I would caution you to not let others realize how little you have handled a gun before. It will make them less likely to trust you, regardless of your skill."

Calista stood, nodding, then offered her hand to help Joshua up. She could see him debating with himself in the instant before he reached out and accepted it. "Let's go back the long way," she said. "If that's alright."

Joshua laughed shortly. "Alright. The long way."

Calista grinned, running outside to gather the remaining bottled and return them to the trailer. Moments later, they were heading back down the path to continue downriver.

Once she reached the water, Calista took off her sandals again to feel the cool stones slide under her feet as she walked. She wondered if the Mojave had rivers she could walk in, but knew it would never be quite the same. No matter how long she spent wandering the wastes, Zion would always be her home.

Calista glanced around at the rocks above them, keeping an eye out for geckos and cazadores. She saw a bighorner lazing along a cliff edge in the distance, but nothing else caught her eye.

"How long have you been in Zion?" she asked, staring at Joshua's back. Joshua glanced at her, then back to the ledges above them.

"A very long time," Joshua said.

"Nothing more… specific?" she prodded.

"Longer than you've been alive," he said, voice plain. "I really don't know anymore." He left the river and walked towards a path, stopping to let Calista put her sandals back on. "This time only about 19 years."

"That seems like forever somehow," Calista said, jogging up the riverbank. They climbed up path after path, twisting and turning to avoid ledges and rocks that would be too difficult for Joshua to climb in his bandages. Having him with her made the climb more difficult, but she relished his company.

Calista still wasn't sure what had made her so crave his attention suddenly; perhaps it was just the fact that she was going away. She would miss him terribly, she knew, but she tried not to think about it as she pushed up the steep paths behind him.

Finally they reached a high point, just as the sun was beginning to drop out of the sky. It lingered above the horizon, scattering a vibrant glow across everything it could reach. Below them she could see the homes of the Dead Horses. Some had lit their campfires, others still working at their tasks in the last moments of daylight. Somehow she couldn't imagine trying to work when the sky was so beautiful, though she'd done it herself many times before.

She stared off into the distance, taking in the beauty of her home, again wondering why she would ever want to leave it. Beside her, Joshua sat down, leaning against a rock. She followed suit, hardly taking her eyes off the sky as she settled down onto the dusty ground. Her hands were stained red from the trip, but she didn't care.

"Tell me about Caesar?" Calista asked, watching as the sky slowly turned red and gold along the horizon.

"There is little to tell that I have not already told you," Joshua said. His eyes too watched the setting sun.

"You said he's terrible to women," Calista prompted. While she wanted to learn more about this potentially deadly man, she more simply wanted to hear Joshua's voice. It was comforting.

"He is. It is no coincidence that nearly all his slaves are women. He abuses them in horrific ways, some physical, some sexual. Apparently he eventually decided he _would _breed an army; it was an idea he'd talked about with me before, but never made any decisions on," Joshua said, stretching one leg out in front of him.

"I can't imagine _breeding_ an army. It would take years!" Calista said in disgust.

"Yes, but how better? The most loyal soldiers are the ones born into their position. They have no other viewpoints to consider," said Joshua.

"It's still horrible," Calista said. A chill ran down her spine at the thought.

Joshua nodded. "I agree. Children don't have a good life with the Legion either. As soon as they are able to talk they begin learning fighting tactics and strategies. By the time they're five they've got machetes in their hands."

"I suppose it's almost a good thing I was born a girl then," Calista said with a bitter laugh.

Joshua laughed lightly. "Yes, I suppose it is. Your luck for being born not only to a Legion man who cared, but to one who could do something about it, is astounding. I would tell you that God has watched over you from the start, but you would not want to hear it," he said.

Calista could see the smirk in his eyes. "I'd let you say it anyway. Today, at least. Maybe not tomorrow, but today."

Joshua's eyes kept smiling, but he said nothing. The sun was half-hidden beyond the edge of the land, casting a golden hue over all that its light could reach. He leaned back on one arm, resting the other over his raised knee.

"Tell me a psalm," she said, her voice quiet. It was something she'd never asked of him before, and though she often blocked her ears from it, she suddenly wanted to hear any that he would tell her.

"O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it," Joshua recited, looking down.

Calista nodded slowly, not entirely sure what most of it meant, but understanding the thought behind it. "It's beautiful," she said, watching as the sun slipped past the horizon.

"It comes from, what I find to be, the most beautiful of all psalms," Joshua said.

"What part is your favorite?" Calista asked, genuine curiosity evident in her voice.

Joshua took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before speaking. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and if there be_ any_ wicked way in me, lead me in the way everlasting.

* * *

A/N: I'm so sorry this chapter took forever to post! I'm working on getting ready for my final semester of college, so things are going to slow down a bit for a while. I plan to keep writing and posting whenever I can during the semester though! I don't really know how long this story is going to be. It's looking like it might be a bit of a monster. As a side note, I'm probably going to go back and rework chapter 5 a lot; I really can't stand it, but I had to get something posted. If I do so, I will mention it in an author's note sometime. I think _this_ chapter is pretty much done, but I may add more bits and pieces of imagery. I'll look at it again tomorrow and see what I think, but you all deserve some reading for waiting so patiently after icky chapter 5!

Thanks for reading.


	7. Chapter 7 - Tell me a Psalm

Calista couldn't sleep. She watched as the light outside slowly became brighter and brighter, futilely squeezing her eyes shut to keep out the day. But morning came, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it.

"There's still a moment to change your mind," Joshua reminded her as she brought her pack outside. "The wasteland will still be there in the Fall."

"Unless somebody blows it up. Again. No," Calista said. "No. If I don't do this now, I probably won't do it. And then I'd spend the rest of my life feeling like a bitch."

Joshua laughed. "No, you'd throw off your shoes and run the full length of the Colorado, shouting for Vulpes to come out and find you if he dared. You've never been one to stay in one place for very long. I'm surprised you've made it this long without leaving."

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life waiting in Zion," she said. "I love this place, but I don't want to pretend anymore that there isn't anything out there. I know what's out there, somewhere, and I need to find it. Him. You know?" She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "And I did leave, once. Remember? When I was 15. I spent that week wandering around exploring all the pre-war buildings and hunting geckos."

"I remember all too well," Joshua said, shaking his head ruefully. "I nearly skinned you when you came home thinking we hadn't noticed your disappearance." Joshua smiled with his eyes. "And I understand. We will be waiting here for your return, whenever that may be; two weeks or twenty years. Whatever you find out there may change you, but you're always welcome back home. You will always have your family, and you will always have your tribe."

"I know," Calista said, smiling. She fought off tears that were threatening to shed, the pounding in her chest increasing as she realized she was really leaving. "I'll be back." She laughed, throwing her head back and letting herself go. "Someone's gotta' take care of you, anyway."

Joshua laughed too, shaking his head.

Jay stood beside his brahmin, checking and double checking her packs and bags to be sure they were all secured tightly. Calista saw him glance up at them with a smile and a nod. He was ready to get on the road.

With a squeal that Calista couldn't decide was of happiness or sadness, Falling-Waters appeared, running towards her, full tilt. The younger girl slammed into her, giving her a tight hug, Calista more catching her than hugging back at first.

"I will miss you so much!" Falling-Waters said, squeezing her and rocking from one side to the other. "You must write to us! Send us letters with Jay."

Calista smiled, hugging her. "I will. And make sure you and Singing-Bird take care of Joshua while I'm gone. There's a store of healing powder to last him about a year." She heard Joshua shifting uncomfortably behind her and laughed. "Deal with it, Joshua," she said, then turned to face him and added in a lower voice, "if it's really that terrible I'll be sure to pass along your rage to you-know-who."

"It's not necessary," Joshua said, laughing. "I'm sure you'll be angry enough for both of us soon after arriving."

Falling-Waters pulled back, looking Calista in the eyes. "We will all take good care of him. Just don't forget where you come from." She poked Calista in the ribs where her tattoo branded her a Dead Horse for life.

"I won't," Calista said. The sudden seriousness in her voice surprised even her. "I won't," she repeated again, softer. "I'll come back, eventually. I just don't know when. Someday."

"Someday," her friend agreed, nodding. Falling-Waters squeezed Calista's hands, then let go of her, taking a few steps back.

Calista turned back to Joshua. She was tense, nearly shaking, but reminded herself over and over in her mind, _keep it together, Cal, keep it together_. She knew she should say something to him, but her mouth couldn't form any words.

Joshua smiled, nodding. "I feel much the same," he said quietly.

Unable to speak, she stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck in a hug, Joshua, not expecting such treatment, took a moment to respond, but carefully hugged her close to him. "We will all miss you," he said.

Calista clung to him, willing her threatening tears away. "Tell me a psalm?" she asked him again in a whisper.

Joshua's voice was barely above a whisper when he spoke. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber."

He gently pulled her from him, grasping her arms in his hands as he continued, looking down into her eyes. "Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

Calista smiled. "Thank you." She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his bandaged forehead, and could see the soft smile lingering in his eyes.

"Go," he said simply, casting her off like a bird back into the sky. His voice was kind and calm, softer than she had heard him since she was a very little girl. It left her with a feeling of confidence she could never quite explain.

She nodded and turned, giving a small wave to Falling-Waters as she turned. Then, picking up her pack, she turned her back on Dead Horse Point and began the long walk to the Mojave. She adjusted her pistol in its simple leather holster, a gift from Falling-Waters, glad to have a piece of both her and Joshua with her.

"You ready?" Jay asked quietly. His smile was bright as always, but it didn't seem to cheer her up.

She put on a fake smile, nodding vigorously.

Jay smiled wider. "Alright then, let's get a move on! Lots of ground to cover." Picking up the brahmin's lead, he spoke louder. "Come on Clarabelle, time to move."

Calista left her sandals hanging on the side of her pack, trying to memorize the feel of Dead Horse Point beneath her feet as she walked. She didn't know how long it would be before she returned home, but she knew it would be a very long time.

* * *

A/N: I made a last minute decision to break this fic up into parts based on where Cal is / what's going on / et cetera. Thus, this chapter got a lot shorter very fast. I'm working on ch. 8 right now too, but wanted to get this bit up tonight. With luck I'll get ch. 8 done late tonight and post it, if not, I'll do my absolute best to get it posted sometime tomorrow! Thanks for reading!


	8. PART 2: Chapter 8 - Dead Horse South

The first few days were the best for Calista. By sticking to the main paths and roads through the canyon, she found places that she remembered from her childhood; it felt like she was reliving her past for miles, and when she was so far that the places were new she felt that same excitement as she had in her youth. Each new bend in the road, each new cave or cliff or valley: everything was wild and fresh and beautiful. She wanted to drink it all in and memorize every detail. It was hard to not simply run towards every interesting thing she saw.

"You always were an explorer!" Jay said with a laugh.

Calista was leaning to one side to better stare down a path, but looked back up to him when he spoke. She grinned, then jogged to catch back up to him. "Yup. It's in my blood I guess!"

"Must be," Jay said, still laughing. "Just be careful now, or you're gonna tire yourself out before we get to our next stop!"

Calista nodded, reminding herself of the endless expanse she would have to cover before even reaching her first destination. New Vegas was hundreds of twisting, turning miles away, and beyond that it was anyone's guess how far she would have to go to find Vulpes.

It felt strange thinking about finding her father now that she was actually trying to do it. She had spent all her life living under Joshua's guidance and protection. He was everything in her life, all the boxes already checked off: father, mother, teacher, brother, preacher, friend. A flash of an image crossed her mind, a memory of when Joshua was first teaching her how to hunt. He crouched low beside her tiny self, still a giant beside her as he pointed with one hand and held a finger to his lips with the other.

The only thing that made Vulpes her father was twenty minutes and bodily fluids.

A part of her wanted to like him, to thank him for what he did for her, but it seemed so meager compared to what Joshua had done. _Which was everything,_ Calista reminded herself, turning herself cold to Vulpes yet again.

"Have you ever been out this way before?" Jay asked conversationally.

Calista had never spent much time talking with Jay before. He was getting older, probably about the same age as Joshua, _who is apparently getting pretty old_,Calista thought. Jay had watched her grow up and knew much of her antics through stories told by Joshua. She herself though had, while happy to enjoy his company, taken little interest in him. Something about his constant questioning somehow made it harder for her to talk.

"Nope," she said, glancing around. "I've always gone East or West. Sometimes even North. But never South."

"Any reason? Or did you just never get to makin' it this way?" Jay asked, his curiosity evident in his voice.

Calista thought for a moment before answering. "I don't really know," she said, chewing on her lip as she thought. "I guess, yeah. I guess I just never got out this way. No real reason. It's beautiful though."

Jay laughed. "This isn't even South yet. Not really, anyway. We've got a lot of walkin' to do before we get there." He patted Clarabelle on her side. "We've got a long, long way to go."

The gesture made Calista smile. There was something cute to her about the way Jay so loved his Brahmin. She wasn't really sure what he liked about the loud, foul-smelling creature; she herself was somewhat repulsed by them. Something about their taught skin made her own skin crawl.

Her mind jumped to the thought of Joshua's broken skin. It was different somehow, maybe just because she'd grown up around him. Joshua couldn't be repulsive to her, though there were moments where shock still ran through her at the sight of the charred flesh.

A movement to her right caught her eye, and she looked across the river to see a gecko running towards them. Its jaws were open wide, teeth exposed and ready to clamp down on the first thing they could touch. Her hand fell to her hip instantly, and in one smooth motion she had pulled her tomahawk from her side, back over her shoulder, and thrown it straight into the gecko's head. It quivered for a moment as its feet forgot how to move, then tumbled to the ground.

"Joshua always did say you were good with that thing," Jay said, his rifle only halfway out of its holster on Clarabelle's side. "I guess he really meant it!"

Calista beamed. "One of the best," she said, "but I suppose I really shouldn't boast."

"Any time you save my life, you have my full permission to boast," Jay said with a laugh. He pulled his rifle out and looked around in the direction the Gecko had come from. "Better take a quick look around, just in case."

"Stay," Calista said, already quietly stepping through the shallow water, only a few inches deep. "I'll take a look. Gotta get the tomahawk anyway."

Jay nodded, but kept his rifle ready anyway.

Calista crouched down over the gecko, being sure it was actually dead before removing her weapon from its skull. Blood trickled down but the creature didn't move. She hated leaving the creature; it could make a great meal later, but it wouldn't be practical to pick it apart now or to carry it to their destination by herself.

The gecko had come from a path she hadn't seen before, the angle hiding it carefully. She quietly stepped towards it, glancing through. She didn't see anything, but wasn't confident that the area on the other side was safe. Deciding it would be better to back away, she turned, but was face to face with Fire-Claw – the lead hunter of the Southern tribe of Dead Horses.

"Yah ah tag," she said quickly, looking up at the tall, muscular man.

His brow furrowed, but recognition came to him when he saw the tomahawk in her hand. "Goot keel," he said.

She nodded her head once in thanks, then had a thought. "Naymst eet, pleez," she said, gesturing to the gecko's corpse. "Shih no raum zu." She pointed at the full caravan across the river.

Fire-Claw glanced at the pack-brahmin, loaded up with goods. "Caravan?" he asked, the word seeming strange on his tongue.

"Ya, Happy Trails," she said. "Pleez, naymst. No willen leev."

The man watched her for a moment. She could see him debating with himself. It was an awkward situation for both. Dead Horses hated to waste good food, but it was also inappropriate to take home another person's kill. While the food was shared by all, there was glory to be had in bringing home a good kill. Fire-Claw was high ranking in his tribe, leaving him to choose between wasting fresh meat and tainting his honor.

Realizing a solution to the problem, she quickly added, "es gift. Fur Dead Horse tribe. Pleez, naymst."

The man gave a slight smile. "Ya. Dank ni, ahk iss."

Calista smiled back. "Goot gonen."

"Good gonen." Fire-Claw turned and walked to the gecko, then easily picked it up and threw it over his shoulder.

Calista tried to hide her surprise at this strength. A full grown gecko was extremely heavy; often it took two grown men to carry one back, lashed to a sturdy metal rod to carry it with. Fire-Claw made it look like a child's doll.

Calista quietly sprinted back across the river to where Jay was patiently watching.

"That was a good move," Jay said, glancing back. "We're heading to their camp next anyway, and that'll help make them a little less cold towards me. Never did seem to like me, don't know why."

"They're the Southern tribe," Calista said, as though it explained everything. "They don't like anyone. They don't really even like the Northern tribe. North got Joshua, South got a better set of caves to live in. Left them bitter."

Jay set his rifle back into its holster. "Well maybe they'll be a little easier to talk to now. He'll get back home long before we get there." He called the brahmin and the three of them started walking again.

When Calista turned back, there was no sign of Fire-Claw.

The sun had nearly set by the time Jay and Calista reached the Southern Dead Horses tribe. Quiet voices could be heard talking around fires, and the smell of roasting gecko flooded Calista's nostrils. The wind blew in gusts, throwing her hair up into her face even though it was tucked away in a rapidly failing braid. A shiver ran down her spine though the ground felt hot against her feet.

While Calista sat down and began to unpack, Jay moved to approach the leader of the Southern tribe. She'd never met him herself, but something about the set of his shoulders made her watch his every movement out of the corner of her eye, and her hand itch for the smooth handle of her tomahawk. Fire-Claw was a larger, more brutish man, but at least she'd met him on other occasions, usually while hunting with her own tribe. She searched her mind for the name of the Southern tribe's leader, but nothing came to her.

Jay looked tense as he spoke with the leader, whose leathery skin was covered in deep, black-grey tattoos of lizards and careful geometric shapes and lines. His arms were fully covered in ink from shoulder to wrist, sun-bleached pyramids and dots and lines wrapping carefully around the aged skin.

Calista made a point to be fiddling with her backframe when Jay walked back over to her.

"The Bull says we should wait until the morning to unpack and trade." Jay loosened the ties holding all the packs and bags against Clarabelle, carefully setting them in a pile beside her. "But he also said they're doin' some ritual in the afternoon tomorrow, meanin' we best be back on the road after a few hours."

"That's not very hospitable," Calista said. She unrolled her sleeping furs.

Jay scoffed as he set down the last of the packs. "True that," he said quietly, "but compared to what they usually offer, they pretty much just built us a house out of gold bricks. I'll take it." He led the brahmin a few steps away to where a patch of grass was growing and left her there to graze.

Shaking her head, Calista turned back to her work. She spread out the furs and set her pack at one end for a pillow the way Joshua had always done when they went on long trips to visit other tribes.

A pair of eyes watching at her caused her to look up, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The stare she met was warm and interested, the fire reflecting back in his eyes, but she couldn't make out the rest of the man's face; the glow of the fire in front of him was too bright in the fast darkening night. They held their gaze for a long moment, before the man stood up.

Calista dropped her eyes away quickly. The man was young but still very powerful, judging by his numerous tattoos; powerful enough that she settled herself down in as small of a position she could manage while still able to polish the blade of her tomahawk. The reflex to clean the blade at the end of a day was natural to her, and reminded her of home.

She could feel the heat of his skin as he moved to sit beside her. "How nice of you to give up such a fine kill," he said. His voice was very quiet, hushed so that only she could hear.

Calista turned, surprised at the clarity in his language. "Thank you," she said, speaking a little slowly to grind out a stutter. "You, uh. You speak—"

"Yes," the man said, cutting her off. "My father was an outlander, like you. He wanted to be sure that I could talk like a 'normal' person."

"That's a rather harsh way of putting it," Calista said. She frowned slightly, glancing up at his face finally. He was watching her hands move back and forth, sliding her polishing cloth along the blade. She looked back down at her work.

"He didn't care much for the Tribe. He was only here because he wanted to learn some of the tribal languages from Joshua Graham. It didn't exactly go how he'd hoped though," he said. He stretched out his arms, the fine lines of his tattoos distending and distorting.

A pulling sensation in her gut brought her mind back to Joshua and their cave, but she pushed the thoughts aside. "I'm sorry," Calista said, not sure what else to offer. She felt the edge of the blade knick her thumb as her hands started to shake slightly, sweat beading on the back of her neck despite the strong breeze.

"Graham said he didn't have the time to teach languages to others anymore, that he was too busy raising another man's daughter," the man pushed.

Calista paid close attention to her breathing, evening out the length of each push and pull of her lungs. "I see."

"I was always jealous of that daughter," he said, leaning closer to her. "Maybe one day she could teach me to talk like an outlander."

She looked up at him, stilling her hands. "But you already—"

"I wasn't raised with the Dead Horses. They don't know. I'm just another tribal to them. They adopted me when they saw how strong I was, how fast I could bring down a kill. In only five short years I've become one of their best hunters." He watched her carefully. "Still, it is good to speak to someone in my native tongue."

"I really can't help you," Calista said, unsure of what it was he was asking her to do. "I'm leaving Zion to—" She cut herself off, weighing her options quickly. "To meet up with someone in the Mojave that's looking for me."

"That's a shame," he said as he moved to whisper in her ear.

She didn't dare move.

"I was hoping we could become better friends," he hissed. His breath lingered against her skin like smoke.

Calista glanced away, looking across the fires which were slowly being left to smolder down to ash. Her eyes settled on Fire-Claw's massive frame. He was sitting with a young woman who was ticking a toddler, presumably his wife and a child of theirs. Though he was talking with them, his eyes locked with hers before glancing to the figure beside her. She looked away, back down to her hands, wiping away a drop of blood from the cut on her thumb.

"Well, like I said, I'm not staying." Calista kept her voice firm.

A shadow fell across them, and she turned to see Fire-Claw standing behind them.

"Dank ni," he said, sitting down on the other side of her. He held out a gecko kebab for her to take. "Naymst, pleez."

Feeling a little more comfortable with the stronger man around, she carefully reached out and took the food. She shifted so that she was facing him more directly, turning away from the other man before taking a bite of it; the meat was rare and juicy, dripping with flavor. Part of her wondered if it only tasted so good because it gave her an excuse to ignore the man plaguing her.

She looked up when Fire-Claw put a hand on her arm and started to speak, struggling to find the words in her own tongue.

"Dead Horse welcome always," he said slowly, his brow furrowed with effort. "North and South. Bull just dislike trade."

Calista smiled, a small and weak expression as she heard the quiet snarl of a curse behind her. "Thank you," she said, following it with "dank ni" for good measure. Fire-Claw's hand lingered on her arm, squeezing slightly as his eyes searched hers for a question. She glanced down at his hand, then the ground beside her, where her tomahawk lay. Her hands itched to reach for it again.

He gave her arm one last small squeeze before he stood, muttering a greeting to the other man. "Yah ehtag, Sting-Jaw."

"Yah ehtag," he said back, his voice cold and filled with obvious mock-respect. Calista noted the slight difference in the way they greeted each other from the 'yah ah tag' she was used to. Perhaps Joshua had been right that the Southern tribe's dialect had been shifting. Sting-Jaw kept watching Fire-Claw until his shadow had dissipated, and he was back with his family again.

"So," Sting-Jaw said quietly, stretching his legs out and settling down, though his voice remained tense. "I'd assume you have a tribal name?"

"I've never used it," she said flatly. She took a particularly violent bite from her kebab, ripping a chunk off with her teeth like a dog tears meat from a bone.

Sting-Jaw stiffened. "Well, I don't use the name I was born with, but that doesn't make it any less mine," he retorted, pushing. "You know mine, it's only right you tell me yours now."

"Maybe, but I don't really care," she said, emblazoned by a sudden burst of confidence.

Sting-Jaw laughed, shaking his head. "For being raised by such a brilliant man, you are _very_ stupid," he said, his tone crisp and calm. "This wasteland will not be kind to you. Perhaps someone should give you a taste of it."

Calista turned on him, her eyes cold. "I think you should go."

"Yes, I'm sure you do," Sting-Jaw said. "But I'm not leaving yet. I don't even have your name."

Calista sighed, closing her eyes to swallow her annoyance. "Cazadore," she said before opening them again. "It's Cazadore."

Sting-Jaw's eyes widened slightly, but he quickly covered the look with a short, quiet laugh. "Then there must be more to you than there looks to be,_ oh_ _beautiful and deadly one_," he said in a sardonic tone.

"I got the name because I can kill with a single throw of my tomahawk," she said, glaring. "So yes, I suppose there is more to me than you would just assume. Now leave me alone before I give you a personal demonstration." She stood, chest heaving in growing anger as she glared down at him.

His eyes stared deep into hers as he stood, rising gracefully in silence. "For now," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "But remember, a Cazadore is only as deadly as its venom."

"And the best place to keep one is at a distance," she added, not blinking. Calista watched his every step as he walked away, slowly fading into the darkness of the night around them. She wondered if perhaps it might have been better to keep him closer, just so she'd know where he was.

Across the camp, Fire-Claw too was standing, watching her carefully. She nodded once to him, and he responded with the same gesture.

Calista shifted in her sleeping furs, hardly able sleep. She kept her left hand filled with her tomahawk and her right hand oh her pistol under the lumpy, make-shift pillow of her pack. Against the ground, the sand kicked up with every gust of wind, hitting her in the face with grit that tasted like char and fat and stone. Every noise forced her tired eyes open.

A hand against her mouth made her eyes flash open again. She tried to bring up her tomahawk, but found it caught under a heavy weight, his foot; whipped her pistol out from under her head but another hand bent her wrist backward painfully. The gun fell to the ground beside her.

"Up," a man's voice muttered above her.

She stayed still, her fists clenched. The hand against her mouth prevented her from spewing the choice words that came to her mind.

"Move," the voice said. When she still refused to move, the hand slid from her mouth to her throat. Strong fingers gripped her neck and pulled her away from her sleeping furs, tossing her in the direction of the river.

The night was dark, only a sliver of moon lighting the path in front of her. She stumbled as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, but the man in front of her crept nimbly along the path, seeming to know just when to step over a rock or around a dip in the path. She tried to dart away, but only succeeded in tumbling down to the ground, tripping from a low spot in the path. The man kicked her, and kept her walking down the path until their feet hit water, then he turned and pulled her along the stream by her arm. She didn't know how far they were going, but with each step away from the camp her heart seemed to race faster.

Pulling them back out of the water, the man shoved her roughly down to the ground. "You made a bad choice in denying me," he said, "but I'll give you the chance to change your mind, now."

Calista's eyes tried to widen in fear and confusion, but could open no further. Her jaw fell open and she tried to speak. No words came out.

The man laughed, grabbing her by the jaw. "That will be a good start," he said, gripping her open mouth and tilting it upward. Realization dawned on her as his free hand began to pull at her shirt. She pushed herself backward with both hands. "No," she said, shaking her head. "I—"

"Begging already?" he said to her with a laugh that curdled her blood. Letting go of her, he kneeled down between her legs. He wrapped his hands around her hips and pressed his lips against her neck.

She jerked, her mind reacting with pure confusion. Her mind told her to run, her legs stayed rooted to the spot, unable to move. She tried to punch him, but his hand caught her fist. He laughed into her skin.

Calista remained frozen as his hands slid up her sides beneath her shirt. _This isn't happening,_ she told herself. _I am __**not**__ going to let this happen to me._ She focused on the feeling of the word, trying to kick him away, but he pinned her legs down easily with his hands. Even though her arms were strong from years of hunting, she couldn't shake him away from her. Her eyes darted around, trying to take in everything in front of her as his hands wandered her body.

She felt bile rise in her throat as thoughts clouded over her mind. Her back began to ache as a sharp rock pressed into it. It slowly pierced into the skin and broke through her thoughts, a moment of clarity slamming into her. Tearing the heavy, jagged rock, from beneath her, she and slammed it into the side of Sting-Jaw's skull, and he fell to the ground, blood trickling from a gash behind his ear: unconscious.

* * *

A/N: Hey all! I'm still writing, I promise. Things are just slow. Check out my blog over on LiveJournal (link is in my profile, at the bottom) to keep up to date on what's going on with me and my writing. Thanks for sticking with me!


	9. Chapter 9 - Stained Ground

Fire-Claw kicked Sting-Jaw hard in the ribs; the unconscious man slid across the ground, skidding like a slab of raw meat across a board. There was an anger in Fire-Claw's eyes that reminded her of the zealous hatred in a yao guai's glare. He looked from the unconscious man to Calista, holding out a hand to her.

"Sting-Jaw es flak," he said, his voice heavy and angry. He closed his eyes, concentrating. "Chin dee flak! Joshua use word… filth?"

Calista took the offered hand and pulled herself up from the ground. "Yes," she said with a nod. "Filth." She gave Sting-Jaw a good kick as well, her foot squashing into his stomach with a soft thud. "Thanks, I mean, dank ni."

Fire-Claw nodded once, then resignedly picked up one of the man's ankles and used it to drag him along the edge of the river bank, not caring when his head thunked against a rock. The pair of them began to slowly walk back to the encampment.

"Veh ni finn?" Calisa asked, looking around. There was no easy way for him to have seen either Sting-Jaw or herself from where they were, yet he had appeared out of nowhere at just the right moment.

"Shih luisteren, geheren bim, da chin dee. Volgen ni heer." Fire-Claw spoke quietly, making it even harder for her to understand him. It sounded like a different language altogether, yet the words were so similar to those of the Northern tribe, making it even more confusing. The noise of Sting-Jaw dragging behind them rang in her ears. His arm splashed into the water, but Fire-Claw didn't seem to care.

She ran her hands along her arms as they walked, brushing away the red-brown dirt. A streak of blood followed her fingers from a cut near her shoulder. She smudged it between her fingers. Blood wasn't something she was afraid of, she was even fairly used to seeing it, but she sight of the red stripe down her arm made her want to wash it off.

Only the sound of Sting-Jaw's arm dragging in the water kept her facing forward. She didn't want to turn and see him; see if he was alive or dead, awake or still totally out-cold. If she never saw him again she'd never miss him.

When they reached the bottom of the approach up to the encampment, Fire-Claw put out an arm to stop her. He held a finger to his lips, pointing at the moving shadows along the base of the high cliff wall. Someone was up and walking around.

Calista glanced back to the man on the ground, her gaze slipping down the leg still gripped in Fire-Claw's hand. A long streak of blood skidded along the sand behind them from beneath Sting-Jaw's head. It was thin and spotty. She only hoped that meant it had started to scab over, and not that he was just running out of blood to lose.

Fire-Claw hoisted the man onto his shoulder. Calista was surprised how quiet he was, even carrying a full-grown man; she didn't hear a single footfall. He walked up the path with a practiced ease, moving along the edge of the camp in the darkness.

"Slaap," he said, so quiet she wasn't sure she'd actually heard him or not. He pointed at her bed and doused fire. Not waiting for a reply, he continued on around the edge of the camp towards the caves.

Calista crawled close to the ground to her place by the fizzled-out fire. She sat on the ground, not wanting to get dirt in the furs of her bedroll. Her eyes followed Fire-Claw, watching as he deftly made his way around the camp.

Near where Fire-Claw walked, a young man was sitting at a fire, running his hands through his hair and staring at the ground. Calista's breath caught; she didn't know what would happen if Fire-Claw was caught bringing Sting-Jaw back to his cave. If anyone found out she had wounded him, possibly even fatally wounded him, it could ruin the few remaining ties between the Dead Horses in the North and those in the South. She chewed her lip, watching the pair.

Her heart stopped briefly as the young man looked up and looked directly at her. She realized she'd been staring, but she didn't know if he could see her. His face turned back to the fire, and Calista started breathing again.

Fire-Claw slipped silently past him, and into a shallow cave. She couldn't quite see what he was doing, but he seemed to position Sting-Jaw's body very carefully, with exacting movements.

Calista's eyes refused to close, even after brushing the dirt from her clothes and laying back down to sleep; she couldn't look stop seeing Sting-Jaw's limp body every time her she slammed her eyes shut. She was sure he wasn't dead, but he wasn't going to wake up very fast. Part of her was afraid he would get up. The rest of her was afraid that he wouldn't.

* * *

The bright light of the sun woke her, glaring into her eyes. Her arm ached and her neck was stiff, propped at an odd angle facing the place where Fire-Claw had dropped Sting-Jaw. Even though it was early, there were several men and women crowded around the place. She saw that he was being moved and his wound was being treated.

She sat up and stretched, the tension slowly easing out of her knotted shoulders. A noise behind her reminded her that she wasn't traveling alone.

"Morning," she said to Jay, as he handed her a cup of hot, brown something. Sniffing it, she decided it must be tea.

"You sleep alright? 'S a nasty cut on your arm," he asked, his voice showing genuine concern.

"Oh, I'm fine," Calista said, brushing away flecks of dried blood. "I rolled right off my bedroll and cut my arm on a rock in the middle of the night. Heard something that sounded like a gecko's hiss, but it was just the fire going out," she said, gesturing to the doused flames. "I think it rained a little during the night."

Jay laughed. "I think I've almost forgot what rain is." The wrinkles creasing his brow smoothed. He started to speak again, but looked past her instead.

Calista turned to see what he was watching. A young girl was walking towards them holding a red basket filled with fruit. When she reached them, she shoved it towards Calista with the unintended roughness that came with her youth.

"Naymst," she said, her voice high but clear. "Es von pada."

With slow hands, Calista took the basket and smiled. "Vaas ni pada?" she asked, looking around to see if any of the men were watching them.

"Fire-Claw!" the little girl said with a grin. "En meer es Lilla."

"Dank ni, Lilla," Calista said, giving the girl's arm a gentle squeeze. Lilla smiled even wider, then ran back to her father, who picked her up with a similar grin. Fire-Claw nodded once to her, then walked back to his wife, carrying Lilla with him. She sat on his arm, with her arms around his neck, her hair falling into her face as she reached out for her mother when she was close enough. The woman took her, kissed the girl's forehead, then walked back into one of the caves.

"I guess it really was a good move," Calista said, taking a sip of her tea. She set the basket down on the ground between Jay and herself. "Giving him that gecko, I mean."

"Well that slice in your arm sure brought your gecko-karma back to neutral; maybe you best leave them all alone for a while. Don't know what'll happen if you find another one," Jay said, grinning wryly.

"I'll likely split it's skull in two," Calista said conversationally, taking a bite out of a banana yucca.

Jay nearly choked on his tea, laughing. "Sounds about like you," he wheezed, pounding his chest.

"What's going on over there?" she asked, changing the subject. "Looks like someone's sick." She pointed across the encampment to where a small crowd still hovered around Sting-Jaw.

"Don't know for certain, but I'm sure we'll find out somehow. They might want to trade for something to help with it." Jay set down his tin cup, now empty. With a groan, he stood, and started the careful work of laying out his wares on blankets.

Calista carefully walked down to the river, easily avoiding the places she'd tripped now that she could see in the broad daylight. She'd expected to see blood streaking along the dirt where Sting-Jaw had been dragged along, but it looked as though Fire-Claw had covered the trail. It seemed odd, but she didn't know what he'd planned. He had been so careful not to wake anyone the night before when he'd brought Sting-Jaw back to the camp, but had told her nothing but to go to sleep. He wasn't one for talking much, Calista knew, but she would have preferred to know what he wanted to do.

Crouching down by the water, she scooped up the clear water with a cupped hand, rubbing away the blood and dirt. It stung; a flash of panic ran through her mind, realizing it was almost certainly infected.

"Calm down," she muttered to herself, washing more water down her arm. "I've got enough healing powder to fix up half the Legion."

The thought of the Legion and who she hoped to find there flashed through her mind with the idle comment. Had her father seen any of these people in his travels? Maybe he had known Sting-Jaw's father, or perhaps even seen Fire-Claw playing as a child. The thought humanized him in a way that descriptions of him hadn't; there was an air of immortality around him.

Smooth-talker, silent, invisible, beautiful, every word attributed to him seemed to be a word in praise of his skill. No one seemed to think he was bad at anything. The thought that he at least may have seen people helped make him real.

She wanted to live up to the legend that he'd become, but she still reviled the man. He was cruel, heartless, did everything for his own gain or for the good of the Legion. Sure the Legion had secured the South and made safe the roads. In fact they had made many things better. Water was free and easily attainable under Caesar's rule, farms were protected, and raiders were largely a thing of the past. But these were all things she grew up with anyway, living in Zion.

The brilliant blue of the sky was interrupted by a single crow flying overhead as she looked up. She couldn't image anywhere where the sky was grey-green with lingering radiation, like Joshua had told her about, anywhere where the ground was cracked and infertile from war. Anywhere without the clash of the red sand and the sun against the blue sky and water.

Tingles ran through her arm as she massaged away the dirt. She shook her thoughts clear, seeing that it was clean and red from rubbing. The sun dried her skin quickly as she walked back up to where Jay was patiently selling his wares.

The Bull was standing beside the row of blankets, arms crossed and jaw set. His ancient skin hung from his bones like cloth draped over branches, and his feet stayed still as roots in the earth. When she neared him, she bowed her head respectfully. He looked her over before nodding back once with a wheezed "yah ehtag."

"Yah ah tag," she said, again nodding.

His scratchy voice was quiet, but strong. "What is your name?" he asked.

Her eyes widened for a moment, hearing him speak outside the tribal language. "Calista," she said, being sure not to stare into his eyes.

"No. Your real name. I know you are Calista, raised by Joshua Graham. You are the daughter of the Outlander," he said. He still stood stiffly.

Calista swallowed once. She hated using her tribal name; she didn't identify with it. She was Calista, and having a tribal name hadn't made them any more comfortable with her.

"Cazadore," she said, checking his expression. "Cazadore of the Northern tribe of the Dead Horses of Zion."

The Bull seemed to think the name over, nodding slowly and chewing on one side of his lip. He said nothing, simply returning to his observations. His shoulders were a little more relaxed, but his gaze was still cold.

"_Perhaps it's just his way, after so many years leading the Southern Tribe,"_ Calista thought. She reached into her pack and pulled out a small packet of healing powder, using spit to slick a few pinches of it against the cut on her arm. Nimble fingers secured a thin bandage around it, deftly tying a knot with one hand.

"You're the one that makes the strong healing powders?" The Bull's voice was inquisitive this time.

"Yes," she said, turning back to face him again. "I grow the plants myself, as well as cure them and grind them."

The Bull nodded. "They are good. Better than others'."

"I've had a lot of time to work on perfecting it. Joshua uses it for his skin; he helped me find what works best."

"Mm," the Bull hummed in agreement. "Do you have enough to sell some?"

"Of course!" Calista said, trying not to sound too eager. "How much is needed? Is someone hurt?"

The Bull laughed hard, arms dropping as he buckled over in a fit, his mouth splitting into a massive grin revealing numerous missing teeth. "Idiot Sting-Jaw fell and split his head on rock by his sleeping place. He will heal, but scar will always remind him to look where he steps in the night."

Calista couldn't help but grin herself. "Yes, I can spare enough for him, I'm sure."

After working out the trade, The Bull pointed her to where Sting-Jaw was laid out. Most of the blood had been washed away, but the broken skin clung on in chunks around the wound. She admonished herself for the sick, twisted happiness the sight caused her. If it had been anyone else it would be another story, but this man was deserving of what she'd given him – and perhaps more, if this was the way he treated women regularly.

One of the women applied a small handful of the powder to the skin, wrapping around his head with damp bandages. Calista noted that the woman didn't seem to care much about working gently. She let his head drop back to the makeshift-bed with a _thunk_, the bone hitting the wood a little harder than was wise.

The woman moved briskly, tidying the area. She was careful to knot the pouch of healing powder shut, but nothing else received such treatment. A pile of blood-stained rags slipped off the table. She gave them a frustrated kick and they flew out of sight.

Calista heard her muttering various words, most notably ones that translated to something like "idiot" in English. A few other women tried to calm her down, but she shooed them away quickly. With nothing to do but wait, the woman set to work digging the stone out from the ground beside his sleeping furs.

There were enough furs there for two people, Calista noticed, confused. She decided though that it would be better to just leave. Quick feet carried her back to Jay and the Bull. Jay was talking to a few of the other Dead Horses, arguing over the price of a cooking pot.

Stepping around the group, she moved to stand next to the Bull. He glanced at her, but didn't say anything.

"Does Sting-Jaw have a—"

"Yes. Her name is Gezen-Crai. Very, very angry," the Bull cut her off. "Probably angry rock didn't kill him." He grinned, just a little.

So did Calista.

* * *

Only a few short hours later, Jay and Calista were packing up their things and loading the packs onto Clarabelle's back again. Jay hadn't said anything about how well or poorly the trading had gone, but the way he was humming suggested he was pleased.

The old brahmin groaned under the new weight as they added more and more to her packs.

"Well it's a good thing I sold more than I bought," Jay said, rubbing Clarabelle's neck. "I think she's going into retirement at the end of this route. Maybe I should too, I'm gettin too old for these trips!" he said, laughing.

"I'm sure she'll be fine," Calista said, though she didn't believe the words as she said them. The brahmin must have been nearly as old as she herself was, perhaps even older.

"I don't know," Jay said, his voice weary and dragging with concern. "She's not as young as she used to be."

"None of us are," Calista pointed out, cocking her head to the side. "That's the funny thing about how time works."

"Says the 18-year-old hopping around the canyon like a baby gecko," said Jay. He pulled on all the straps holding the packs in place as he spoke, checking and double-checking that they held.

"It's true though," Calista said, laughing a little to ease the tension. "Maybe she just needs a break for a while. Give her a season to graze somewhere pretty and I'm sure she'll perk up."

"True that. At least I hope it is!" Jay said with a short, hollow laugh. He patted the brahmin on her back, smiling at the low, happy _murrn_ she gave in response.

Calista crouched down and tied the top of her pack shut, drawing the cords tightly together so nothing would shift while she carried it. It seemed lighter, even though she'd only sold a few pouches of her healing powder, and the caps she'd received for them were actually heavier than it. The stash of caps at the bottom of her pack clinked slightly as she shook the pack to settle its contents.

"Yah ehtag," said a deep voice behind her. She recognized it as Fire-Claw's.

She turned, her heel digging into the dirt as she twisted on it. "Yah ah tag," she responded, standing up.

"Dead Horse welcome, always," he said, reiterating his words from the night before. "Return? Stahp heer. Ya?"

Calista smiled, nodding. "Ya. Meer stahp. Zookuh ni."

"Gut," Fire-Claw said. He smiled, his gaze shifting to Jay behind her.

"We're good to go, Cal," Jay said. He didn't sound impatient, but she was sure he was anxious to get moving.

"Alright," she said over her shoulder to him. With a sigh, she picked up her pack and settled it as comfortably as she could on her shoulders, then turned to Fire-Claw.

"Dank ni fuhr alle. Goot gonen, ahk iss," she said. She held out her arm, palm open and up.

Fire-Claw took her arm in his own hand, accepting the gesture of respect and friendship. "Goot gonen, ahk iss." He held her arm firmly for a moment, smiling. When he let go, she wondered if she'd ever see him again. As she turned and set off down the path back towards the river, she hoped he would.

* * *

A/N: My sincerest apologies for the slow updating. This semester is bizarre, and the weather more so. Bad weather means bad migraines for me, and that means no writing usually. I try to update my status through my LiveJournal account though, so you can always check it to see what I'm up to. With luck, I'll be writing more on my weekends soon! Thanks for sticking with me.

Also. This chapter is a little heavy on the Dead Horse dialects. A lot of it I've had to put together on my own, but all original content I could pull from the language is listed at the link below. If you want to check it out, it might help you to understand anything that I've not made obvious. I apologize if you actually feel the need to look it up! I'm trying to make it largely obvious when I can. Being a student of Linguistics, it may not come off as well as I hope it did.

EDIT: ok, the link wont post on here. So. It's: .com (slash) Language_of_the_Dead_Horses


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